een pining for--if you'll consent to sail under false
colours."

"Please!" Sally begged with a confused and excited little laugh.

"He simply can't help it; indirection is Walter's long suit," Mrs.
Standish took up the tale. "First of all, you must know this aunt of
ours is rather an eccentric--frightfully well off, spoiled,
self-willed, and quite blind to her best interests. She's been a widow
so long she doesn't know the meaning of wholesome restraint. She's got
all the high knee-action of a thoroughbred never properly broken to
harness. She sets her own pace--and Heaven help the hindermost!
All in all, I think Aunt Abby's the most devil-may-care person I've
ever met."

"You're too modest," Mr. Savage commented abstractedly.

"Be quiet, Walter. Aunt Abby's passionately fond of two things--cards
and what she calls 'interesting people.' Neither would matter much but
for the other. She gambles for sheer love of it, and doesn't care a
rap whether she wins or loses. And her notion of an interesting person
is anybody fortunate or misfortunate enough to be noticed by the
newspapers. A bit of a scandal is sure bait for her regard . . ."

Pausing, Mrs. Standish smiled coolly. "Take me, for example. Until I
found it necessary to get unmarried, my aunt never could find time to
waste on me. But now, in spite of the fact that the decree was in my
favour, I'm the object of her mad attachment. And if Walter hadn't
come into the limelight through a Senatorial inquiry into high
finance, and made such a sick witness, and got so deservedly roasted
by the newspapers--well, nothing is now too good for him. So, you see,
the people Aunt Abby insists on entertaining are apt to be a rather
dubious lot. I don't mean she'd pick up with anybody openly immoral,
you know; but she certainly manages to fill her houses--she's got
several--with a wild crew of adventurers and--esses--to call 'em
by their first names.

"They're smart enough, God knows, and they do make things hum, but
they charge her--some of them--fat fees for the privilege of
entertaining them. Funny things have happened at her card tables. So
Walter and I have been scheming to find some way to protect her
without rousing her resentment by seeming to interfere. If we could
only get evidence enough to talk privately to some of her
friends--about time-tables, for instance--it would be all right. And
only recently she herself showed us the way--wrote me that she had
quarrelled wi