quite sure whether the salute will be returned."

"Those," said Clovis, "are the Brimley Bomefields. I dare say you
would look depressed if you had been through their experiences."

"I'm always having depressing experiences;" said the Baroness, "but I
never give them outward expression. It's as bad as looking one's age.
Tell me about the Brimley Bomefields."

"Well," said Clovis, "the beginning of their tragedy was that they
found an aunt. The aunt had been there all the time, but they had very
nearly forgotten her existence until a distant relative refreshed their
memory by remembering her very distinctly in his will; it is wonderful
what the force of example will accomplish. The aunt, who had been
unobtrusively poor, became quite pleasantly rich, and the Brimley
Bomefields grew suddenly concerned at the loneliness of her life and
took her under their collective wings. She had as many wings around her
at this time as one of those beast-things in Revelation."

"So far I don't see any tragedy from the Brimley Bomefields' point of
view," said the Baroness.

"We haven't got to it yet," said Clovis. "The aunt had been used to
living very simply, and had seen next to nothing of what we should
consider life, and her nieces didn't encourage her to do much in the
way of making a splash with her money. Quite a good deal of it would
come to them at her death, and she was a fairly old woman, but there
was one circumstance which cast a shadow of gloom over the satisfaction
they felt in the discovery and acquisition of this desirable aunt: she
openly acknowledged that a comfortable slice of her little fortune
would go to a nephew on the other side of her family. He was rather a
deplorable thing in rotters, and quite hopelessly top-hole in the way
of getting through money, but he had been more or less decent to the
old lady in her unremembered days, and she wouldn't hear anything
against him. At least, she wouldn't pay any attention to what she did
hear, but her nieces took care that she should have to listen to a good
deal in that line. It seemed such a pity, they said among themselves,
that good money should fall into such worthless hands. They habitually
spoke of their aunt's money as 'good money,' as though other people's
aunts dabbled for the most part in spurious currency.

"Regularly after the Derby, St. Leger, and other notable racing events
they indulged in audible speculations as to how much money Roger had
s