chin rose a quarter of an inch.

"Aunt Eliza," she said firmly, "I know you will----"

"_Your Aunt Eliza_, Kitty?" cried the editor.

"'Kitty'?" said the aunt.

And now the situation hung all too nicely balanced on the extreme edge
of the absolutely impossible. Would this middle-aged lady--an aunt
beyond doubt--an aunt who so long had played a double _role_, assume,
now that one _role_ must be chosen, the part of Aunt Eliza the Terrible
or of Aunt Kate the Kind? The aunt was dumb. Kitty was dumb. But the
editor had his wits about him, and Kate, though shaken, was not
absolutely paralysed.

"It's almost too good to be true," he said, "that _my_ Aunt Kate is
really _your_ Aunt Eliza. Aunt Kate, Kitty and I have just decided that
we can't do without each other. I am so glad that you are the first to
wish us joy."

At his words all the "Kate" in the aunt rose triumphant, trampling down
the "Eliza."

"My dear boy," she said--and she said it in a voice which Kitty had
never heard before--the sound of that voice drew Kitty like a magnet.
She did the only possible thing--she put her arms timidly round her
aunt's neck and whispered: "Oh, don't be Aunt Eliza any more, be Aunt
Kate!"

It was Aunt Kate's arms undoubtedly that went round the girl. Certainly
not Aunt Eliza's.

"I will take a walk down Fleet Street," said the editor discreetly.

Then there were explanations in the office.

"But why," said Kitty, when all the questions had been asked and
answered, "why were you Aunt Eliza to me, and Aunt Kate to him?"

"My dear, one must spoil somebody, and I was determined not to spoil
_you_; I wanted to save you. All my life was ruined because I was a
spoiled child--and because I tried to write. I had such dreams, such
ambitions--just like yours, you silly child! But then I was never
clever--perhaps you may be--and it all ended in my losing my lover. He
married a nice, quiet, domestic girl, and I never made name or fame at
all--I never got anything taken but fashion articles--and 'Answers to
Correspondents.' Now, that's the whole tale. Don't mention it again."

"But you did love me, even when----"

"Of course I did," said Aunt Kate in the testy tones of Aunt Eliza; "or
why should I have bothered at all about whether you were going to be
happy or not? Now, Kitty, you're not to expect me to gush. I've
forgotten how to be sentimental except on paper."

"I don't want to be sentimental," said Kitty, a little injured, "