tart, preparing to receive----"

"I wasn't 'preparing to receive' anybody!" hotly from me.

"No?" with icy satire from Aunt Anastasia. "You were not even going to
ask the young man in? You stood there, like a scullery-maid indulging in
a vulgar flirtation with a policeman."

"I wasn't, I wasn't."

"I heard you giving him an address where he could write to you,
doubtless?"

"Write to me? It was nothing of the kind," I took up, ready to stamp
with rage. "It was--it was Million's address I was going to give to that
young man."

"A likely story! Million, indeed!"

"You don't believe me? How dare you not, Aunt Anastasia? Look! Here's
the proof!" And I held out to her the oval silver brooch with the raised
"Nellie" upon it.

"Look! This is Million's brooch. She dropped it on the 'bus the other
morning. And the young man from next door found it. And he came round to
return it----"

"Yes. As soon as he had made certain, or had been assured, that you
would be alone," declared my Aunt Anastasia, with unyielding accusation
in every angle of her. "To return Million's brooch! Oh, Beatrice, you
must think me very unsophisticated!" The thin lips curled. "This is an
excuse even thinner than that about the garden-hose the other evening.
No doubt there have been others. How long have you been carrying on this
underhand and odious flirtation with that unspeakable young cad?"

"Auntie!" I felt myself shaking all over with justifiable indignation. A
flirtation? I? With that young man! Why, why--when I'd such honourable
intentions of securing him, as her "gentleman" lover, for our newly made
heiress, Million! I simply boiled over with righteous rage. I said,
"You've no right to make such a suggestion."

"Beatrice! You forget to whom you are speaking."

"I don't. But I'm twenty-three, and I don't think you need go on
treating me as if I were a schoolgirl, refusing to listen to what I have
to say. Allowing me no liberty, no friends----"

"Friends! Is that why you make your own in this hole-and-corner
fashion?"

"I shouldn't be to blame if I did!" I declared hotly. "You don't realise
what my life is here with you. It's all very well for you to live in the
past, pondering over the dear departed glories of our family. But at my
age one doesn't care twopence for an illustrious past. What one wants is
something to do, and to be--and to enjoy--in the present! I don't see
why it should be enough for me to remember that, even if I