he most dreadful things; she's
always hurting people's feelings."

"She couldn't hurt mine, unless I let her," said Quin.

"Oh, yes, she could--you don't know her. But even if she happened to be
nice to you, there's Aunt Isobel."

"What is she like?"

"_Horribly_ good and conscientious, and shocked to death at everything
people do and say. I don't mean that she isn't awfully kind. She'll do
anything for you if you are sick. But Uncle Ranny says her sense of duty
amounts to a vice. Whatever she's doing, she thinks she ought to be doing
something else. And she expects you to be just as good as she is. If she
knew I was out here with a strange man to whom I'd never been
introduced----"

Eleanor was appalled at the effect upon her aunt of such indiscretion.

"Oh, I could handle her all right," said Quin boastfully. "I'd talk
foreign missions to her. Any others?"

"Heaps. There's Aunt Flo and Uncle Ranny. He's a dear, only he's the
black sheep of the family. He says I am a promising gray lamb, which
makes grandmother furious. They all let her twist them round her finger
but me. I won't twist. I never intend to."

"Is that all the family?"

"No; there's Aunt Enid. She is the nicest of them all."

"What is her line?"

"Oh, she's awfully good, too. But she's different from Aunt Isobel. She
was engaged to be married once, and grandmother broke it off because the
man was poor. I don't think she'll ever get over it."

"Do you think she would like me?" Quin anxiously inquired.

"Yes," admitted Eleanor, "I believe she would. She simply adores to mold
people. She doesn't care how many faults they have, if they will just let
her influence them to be better. And she does help loads of people. I am
her one failure. She wouldn't acknowledge it for the world, but I know
that I am the disappointment of Aunt Enid's life."

She gazed gloomily down the long moonlit road and lapsed into one of her
sudden abstractions. A belated compunction seized her for not going
straight home from the Martels', for being late for dinner on her last
night, for going on with her affair with Captain Phipps, when she had
been forbidden to see him.

"Miss Nell," said the persistent voice beside her, "do you know what I
intend to do while you are away?"

"No; what?"

"I'm going to start in to-morrow morning and make love to your whole darn
family!"

Now, if there is one thing Destiny admires in a man, it is his courage to
defy her. She rele