to dinner with her.

Zenobia never shoves any advice on me, good or otherwise, and never asks
nosey questions; but she's the one who sees that my socks are kept
mended and has my suits sent to the presser. She don't read things to
me, or expound any of her fads. She just talks to me like she does to
anyone else--minor poets or social reformers--about anything she happens
to be int'rested in at the time,--music, plays, Mother Jones, the war,
or how suffrage is comin' on,--and never seems to notice when I make
breaks or get over my head.

A good sport Zenobia is, and so busy sizin' up to-day that she ain't got
time for reminiscin' about the days before Brooklyn Bridge was built.
And the most chronic kidder you ever saw. Say, what we don't do to Aunt
Martha when both of us gets her on a string is a caution! That's what
makes so many of our meals such cheerful events.

You might think, from a casual glance at Zenobia, with her gray hair and
the lines around her eyes, that she'd be kind of slow comp'ny for me,
especially to chase around to plays with and so on. But, believe me,
there's nothin' dull about her, and when she suggests that she's got an
extra ticket to anything I don't stop to ask what it is, but just gets
into the proper evenin' uniform and trots along willin'!

So that's how I happens to be with her at this Shaw play, and discussin'
between the acts what Barney was really tryin' to put over on us. The
first intermission was most over too before I discovers this ruddy-faced
old party in the back of Box A with his opera glasses trained steady in
our direction. I glances along the row to see if anyone's gazin' back;
but I can't spot a soul lookin' his way. After he's kept it up a minute
or two I nudges Aunt Zenobia.

"Looks like we was bein' inspected from the box seats," says I.

"How flatterin'!" says she. "Where?"

I points him out. "Must be you," says I, grinnin'.

"I hope so," says Zenobia. "If I'm really being flirted with, I shall
boast of it to Sister Martha."

But just then the lights go out and the second act begins. We got so
busy followin' the nutty scheme of this conversation expert who plots to
pass off a flower-girl for a Duchess that the next wait is well under
way before I remembers the gent in the box.

"Say, he's at it again," says I. "You must be makin' a hit for fair."

"Precisely what I've always hoped might happen,--to be stared at in
public," says Zenobia. "I'm greatly obliged t