Chapter IV: Part 4

His words came true, and they finally did emerge from the seething mass and found a carriage, the door of which happened to be standing mysteriously open. Within, upon the small seat, some omniscient hands had already deposited Aunt Mary’s bags. It did not take long to stow Aunt Mary, face to her luggage, and she was barely established there before her trunk came, too; and, although the coachman looked so gorgeous, he was nevertheless obliging enough to allow it to couch humbly at his feet.

Then they rolled away.

Jack sat sideways and looked at his aunt, holding her hand. His eyes were unfeignedly happy, and his companion matched his eyes. Neither seemed to recollect that one was bitterly angry, and that the other was on the verge of melancholia. Instead, Jack declared fervently:

“Aunt Mary, I’ve made up my mind to give you the time of your life!”

And Aunt Mary drew a sigh of relief in his words and anticipation of their fulfillment.

“I’ll be happy takin’ care of you,” she said, benevolently. “My!—but your letter scared me. An’ yet you look well.”

He laughed.

“It’s the knowing you were coming that’s done that, Aunt Mary. You ought to have seen me when I got your telegram. I almost turned a somersault.”

Aunt Mary smiled rapturously and patted his hand.

And just then they drew up in front of the house. She looked out, and her face fell a trifle.

“It’s awful high and narrow,” she said.

“They all are,” Jack replied, opening the carriage door and jumping out to receive her.

The door at the top of the steps opened, and a man came down for the bags. In the hall above, a pretty maid waited with a welcoming smile.

Jack piloted his aunt, first up the entrance steps, and then up the staircase within, and led her to the lovely room which had been vacated for her. The maid followed with tea and biscuits, and the man brought the luggage and ranged it unobtrusively in a corner. There was a lavish richness about everything which made Aunt Mary and her trunk appear as gray and insignificant as a pair of mice, by contrast; but she didn’t feel it, and so she didn’t mind it.

Jack kissed her tenderly.

“Welcome to town, Aunt Mary,” he said heartily, “and may you never live to look upon this day as other than the luckiest of your life!” Then, turning to the servant, he said:

“Janice, you see that you do all that money can buy for my aunt.”

The maid courtesied. She had arranged the tray upon a little table and the spout of the tea pot and the round hole in the middle of the toast-cover were each pouring forth a pleasant suggestion.

Aunt Mary began at once to haul forth her keys.

“Why, Aunt Mary,” Jack cried, wondering if her nose was deaf, too, or whether she didn’t feel hungry, “don’t you see your tea? Or don’t you want any?”

Aunt Mary thumbed her trunk key.

“I want a nightgown,” she said; “maybe I’ll want something else later. Maybe.”

“You’re not going to _bed!_”

She drew herself up.

“I guess I can if I want to; I guess I can. There’s the bed and here’s me.”

“Whatever are you saying? It isn’t half-past six o’clock.”

“I’m not _prayin_’ about anything,” said the old lady. “I don’t pray about things. I do ’em when needful. And when I’m tired I go to bed.”

“All right, Aunt Mary,” with sugary sweetness and lamb-like submissiveness. “I thought we’d dine out together, but if you don’t want to, we needn’t. And if you feel like it when you waken, we can.”

“Dine out,” said Aunt Mary, blankly; “has the cook left? I never was a great approver of goin’ and eatin’ at boarding houses.”

“Well, never mind,” Jack said in a key pitched to rhyme with high C. “I’ll leave you now—and we can see about everything later.”

He kissed her, and retired from the room.

“Did he say we’re goin’ out to dinner?” Aunt Mary asked, when she was left alone with the maid, who hurried to take her bonnet and shawl, and get her into juxtaposition with the tea-tray as rapidly as possible.

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl screamed, nodding.

“I don’t want to,” said the old lady firmly. “Lots of trouble comes through gettin’ out of house habits. I’ve come here to take care of a sick boy and not to go gallivantin’ round myself. I’ve seen the evils of gallivantin’ a good deal lately and I don’t want to see no more. Not here and not nowhere.”

Then she began to eat and drink and reflect, all at the same time.

“By the way, what’s your name?” she asked, suddenly. “Jack didn’t tell me.”

“Janice, ma’am.”

“Granite?” said Aunt Mary. “What a funny idea to name you that! Did they call you for the tinware or for the rocks?”

“I don’t know,” shrieked Janice, who was busily occupied in unpacking the traveler’s trunk.

Her new mistress watched her with a critical eye at first, but it became a more or less sleepy eye as the warmth of the tea meandered slowly through its owner. There was a battle within Aunt Mary’s brain; she wanted to please Jack, and she was almost dead with sleep.

“Do you think that I ought to try and go out with my nephew to-night?” she asked Janice.

“If it was me, I should go,” cried the maid.

“I never was called slow before,” Aunt Mary said, bridling. “I’ll thank you to remember your place, young woman.”

Janice explained.

“Oh! I didn’t hear plainly,” said Aunt Mary. “I don’t always. Well go or not go, I’ve _got_ to sleep first. I’m dreadfully sleepy, and I’ve always been a great believer in sleepin’ when you’re sleepy.”

The fact of the sleepiness was so evident that no attempt was made to gainsay it. Janice brought down a quilt from the closet and tucked her charge up luxuriously on the great bed. Five minutes later she was in dreamland.

Jack came in about seven and looked at her.

“She mustn’t be disturbed,” he said thoughtfully. “If she wakes up before ten we’ll go out then.”

She awoke about nine, and when she opened her eyes the first thing that she saw was Janice, sitting near by.

“I feel real good,” said Aunt Mary.

“I’m so glad,” yelled Janice, and smiled, too.

The old lady sat up.

“I believe I could have gone out, after all,” she said. “Only I don’t want to take dinner anywhere.”

Then she paused and reflected. It was surprising how good she felt and how she did want to make Jack happy. “After all boys will be boys,” she thought, tenderly, “an’ I ain’t but seventy, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t go out with him if he wants to. I’m a great believer in doin’ what you want to—I mean, in doin’ what other folks want you to. At any rate I’m a great believer in it sometimes. To-day—this time.”

“Your nephew is waiting,” the maid howled. “Shall I tell him you want to go after all?”

“Is it late?” the old lady inquired.

“Oh, dear, no!”

“Wouldn’t you go if you was me?” asked the old lady.

Janice smiled.

“Indeed I would.”

Aunt Mary rose. A flood of metropolitan fever suddenly surged up and around and over and through her.

“Tell him I’ll be down in five minutes,” she said.

“Can you change in that time?” Janice stopped to shriek.

“What should I change for?” Aunt Mary demanded in astonishment. “Ain’t I all dressed now?”

Janice did not attempt to shriek any counter-advice, and while she was gone to find Jack, her mistress brushed herself in some places, soaped herself in others, and considered her toilet made. When Janice returned she caught up a loose lock of hair, and put the placket-hole of her skirt square in the middle of Aunt Mary’s back, and dared go no further. There was an air even about the back of Jack’s influential aunt which forbade too much liberty to those dealing with her.

Chapter Fourteen Aunt Mary En Fête

Aunt Mary descended the stairs about half-past nine; she thought it was about a quarter to eight, but the difference between the hour that it was and the hour that she thought that it was will be all the same a hundred years from now.

Jack came out of the Louis XIV. drawing room when he heard her step in the hall. There was another young man with him.

“This is my friend Burnett, Aunt Mary,” her nephew roared. “You must excuse his not bowing lower, but you know he broke his collarbone recently.”

Aunt Mary shook hands warmly; she knew all about the ribs and the collarbone, because they had formed big items in the testimony which had momentarily and as momentously relegated Jack to the comradeship of the devil himself, in her eyes. However, she recalled them merely as facts now—not at all in a disagreeable way—and gave Burnett an extra squeeze of good-fellowship, as she said:

“You had a narrow escape, young man.”

“I didn’t have any escape at all,” said Burnett. “The escape went down at the back, and I had to jump from a cornice.”

“Burnett is going out to dine with us, Aunt Mary,” said Jack. “There’s so little he can eat on account of his ribs that he’s a good dinner guest for me.”

Jack’s aunt felt vaguely uncomfortable over this allusion to her grand-nephew’s circumstances, and coughed in slight embarrassment.

Burnett opened the door, and the carriage lamp shone below. (Is there ever anything more delightfully suggestive than a carriage lamp shining down below?) They took her down and put her in, and the carriage rolled away.

It was that June when “Bedelia” covered nearly the whole of the political horizon; it was the date of June when West Point, Vassar, the Blue, the Red, the Black and Yellow and every known device for getting rid of young and growing-up America are all cast loose at once on our fair land. The streets were a scene of glorious confusion, and but for Aunt Mary no considerations could have kept Burnett’s collarbone and Jack’s melancholia cooped up in a closed carriage. As it was, they were both fidgeting like two youthful Uncle Sams in a European railway coupé, when the latter suddenly exclaimed: “Here we are!” and threw open the door as he spoke. Then he got out and Burnett got out and between them they got Aunt Mary out.

Aunt Mary regarded the awning and carpet and general glitter with a more or less appalled gaze.

“Looks like—” she began; and was interrupted by a voice at her side:

“Hello, Jack!”

“Hello, Clover!”

She turned and saw him of the pale mustache whom we once met in Mrs. Rosscott’s drawing room. He was in no wise altered since that occasion except that his attire was slightly more resplendent and he had on a silk hat.

Jack shook hands warmly and then he turned to his relative.

“Aunt Mary, this is my friend Clover; he’s often heard me speak of you.”

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Rover,” said Aunt Mary, cordially, and she, too, shook hands with that cordiality that flourishes beyond city limits.

Her nephew bent over her ear-trumpet.

“Clover!” he howled, with all the strength he owned.

“I heard before,” said Aunt Mary, somewhat coldly.

“Come on and dine with us, Clover,” said Jack; “that’ll make four.” (By the way, isn’t it odd how many people ask their friends to dinner for the simple reason that, arithmetically considered, each counts as one!)

“All right, I will,” said Clover, in his languid drawl.

Aunt Mary saw his lips.

“It’s no use my deceivin’ you as to my bein’ a little hard of hearin’,” she said to him, “because you can see my ear-trumpet; so I’ll trouble you to say that over again.”

“All right, I will,” Clover wailed, good-humoredly.

“What?” asked Aunt Mary. “I didn’t—”

Jack cut her short by leading the party inside.

The scene within was as gorgeous with golden stucco as the dining-room of a German liner. Aunt Mary was so overcome that she traversed half the room before she became aware of the mighty attention which she and her three escorts were attracting. In truth, it is not every day that three good-looking young men take a tiny old lady, a bunch of violets and an ear-trumpet out to dine at ten o’clock.

“Everyone’s lookin’,” she said to Jack.

“It’s your back, Aunt Mary,” he replied, in a voice that shook some loose golden flakes from the ceiling. “I tell you, not many women of your age have a back like yours, and don’t you forget it.”

The compliment pleased Aunt Mary, because she had all her life been considered round-shouldered. It also pleased her because she never had received many compliments. The Aunt Marys of this world love flattery just as dearly as the Mrs. Rosscotts; the sad part of life is that they rarely get any. The women like Mrs. Rosscott know why the Aunt Marys go unflattered, but the Aunt Marys never understand. It’s all sad—and true—and undeniable.

They went to a table, and were barely seated when another man came up.

“Hello, Jack!”

“Hello, Mitchell!”

It was he of Scotch ancestry. Jack sprang up and greeted him with warmth, then he turned to Aunt Mary.

“Aunt Mary,” he screamed, “this is my friend”—he paused, put on all steam and ploughed right through—“Herbert Kendrick Mitchell.”

“I didn’t catch that at all,” said Aunt Mary, calmly, “but I’m just as glad to meet the gentleman.”

Mitchell clasped her hand with an expression as burning as if it was real.

“I declare,” he yelled straight at her, “if this isn’t what I’ve been dreaming towards ever since I first knew Jack.”

Aunt Mary fairly shone.

“Dear me,” she began, “if I’d known—”

“You’d better dine with us, Mitchell,” said Jack; “that’ll make five.”

“It won’t make but three for me,” said Mitchell. “I haven’t had but two dinners before to-night.”

Clover smiled because he heard, and Aunt Mary smiled because she didn’t, but was happy anyway. She had altogether forgotten that she had demurred at dining out. They all sat down and shook out their napkins. Mitchell and Clover shook Aunt Mary’s for her and gave it a beautiful cornerways spread across her lap.

Then the waiter laid another plate for Mitchell, and brought oyster cocktails for everyone. Aunt Mary eyed hers with early curiosity and later suspicion; and she smelled of it very carefully.

“I don’t believe they’re good oysters,” she said.

“Yes, they are,” cried Mitchell reassuringly. His voice, when he turned it upon her, was pitched like a clarionet. The blind would surely have seen as well as the deaf have heard had there been any candidates for miracles in his immediate vicinity. “They’re first-class,” he added, “you just go at them and see.”

The reassured took another whiff.

“You can have mine,” she said directly afterwards; and there was an air of decision about her speech which brooked no opposition. Yet Mitchell persisted.

“Oh, no,” he yelled; “you must learn how. Just throw your head back and take ’em quick—after the fashion that they eat raw eggs, don’t you know?”

“But she can’t,” said Clover. “There’s too much, particularly as she isn’t used to them. I’ll tell you, Miss Watkins,” he cried, hoisting his own voice to the masthead, “you eat the oysters, and leave the cocktail. That’s the way to get gradually trained into the wheel.”

Aunt Mary thought some of obeying; she fished out one oyster, wiped it carefully with a bit of bread, regarded it with more than dubious countenance, and then suddenly decided not to.

“I’d rather be at home when I try experiments,” she said, decidedly; and the waiter carried off her cocktail and gave her food that was good beyond question thereafter.

The dinner went with zest. It was an enlivening party that consumed it, and what they consumed with it enlivened them still more. The gentlemen soon reached the point where they could laugh over jokes they could not understand, and the one lady member became equally merry over wit that she did not hear. She forgot for the nonce that there were any phases of life in which she was not a believer, and whether this was owing to the surrounding gayety or to the champagne which they persuaded her to taste it is not my province to explain.

“Now we must lay our lines for events to come,” Jack said, when they advanced upon the dessert and prepared to occupy an extensive territory of ices, fruit, and jellied something or other. “It would be a sin for Aunt Mary to leave this famous battlefield without a few honorable scars! We must take her out in a bubble for one thing and—”

“In mine!” cried Clover. “To-morrow! Why can’t she?—I held up my hand first?”

“All right,” said Jack; “to-morrow she’s your’s. At four o’clock.”

“She must have goggles,” cried Mitchell. “She must have goggles and be all fixed up, and when you have got her the goggles and she has been all fixed up, I ask, as a last boon, that I may go along, just so as to see everyone who sees her.”

“We’ll all go,” Clover explained. “I’ll ‘chuff’ her myself and then there’ll be room for everyone.”

“To the auto and to to-morrow!” cried Burnett, hastily pouring out a fresh toast, which even Aunt Mary applauded, not at all knowing what she was applauding.

“And now for the next day,” said Jack. “I think I’ll give her a box-party. Don’t you want to go to the theater in a box, Aunt Mary?”

“Go where in a box?” said Aunt Mary, starting a little. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“To the theater,” Jack yelled.

“To the theater,” repeated his aunt a trifle blankly, “I—”

“And the next day,” said Mitchell suddenly (he had been reflecting maturely), “I’ll take you all up the sound in my yacht.”

“Oh, hurrah,” cried Burnett, “that’ll be bully! And the day after I’ll give her a picnic.”

“Time of your life, Aunt Mary,” Jack shrieked in her ear-trumpet; “time of your life!”

“Dear me!” said Aunt Mary, “I don’t just—”

“Aunt Mary! glasses down!” cried Clover; “may she live forever and forever.”

“To Aunt Mary, glasses up,” said Mitchell. “Glasses up come before glasses down always. It’s one of the laws of Nature—human nature—also of good nature. Here’s to Aunt Mary, and if she isn’t the Aunt Mary of all of us here’s a hoping she may get there some day; I don’t just see how, but I ask the indulgence of those present on the plea that I have indulged quite a little myself to-night. Honi soit qui mal y pense; ora pro nobis, Erin-go-Bragh. Present company being present, and impossible to except on that account, we will omit the three cheers and choke down the tiger.”

They all drank, and the dinner having by this time dwindled down to coffee grounds and cheese crumbs a vote was taken as to where they should go next.

Aunt Mary suggested home, but she was over-ruled, and they all went elsewhere. She never could recollect where she went or what she saw; but, as everyone else has been and seen over and over again, I won’t fuss with detailing it.

The visitor from the country reached home in a carriage in the small hours in the morning, and Janice received her, looking somewhat nervous.

“This is pretty late,” she ventured to remind the bearers; but as they didn’t seem to think so, and she was a maiden, wise beyond her years, she spoke no further word, but went to work and undressed the aged reveller, got her comfortably established in bed, and then left her to get a good sleep, an occupation which occupied the weary one fully until two that afternoon.

When she did at last open her eyes it was several minutes before she knew where she was. Her brain seemed dazed, her intellect more than clouded. It is a state of mind to which those who habitually go about in hansoms at the hour of dawn are well accustomed, but to Aunt Mary it was painfully new. She struggled to remember, and felt helplessly inadequate to the task. Janice finally came in with a glass of something that foamed and fizzed, and the victim of late hours drank that and came to her senses again. Then she recollected.

“My! but I had a good time last night!” she said, putting her hand to her head. “What time is it now, anyhow?”

“Breakfast time,” cried the handmaiden. “You’ll have just long enough to eat and dress leisurely before you go out.”

“Oh!” said Aunt Mary blankly; “where ’m I goin’? Do you know?”

“Mr. Denham told me that you had promised to attend an automobile party at four.”

“Oh, yes,” said Aunt Mary hastily. “I guess I remember. I guess I do. I saw Jack wanted to go, so I said I’d go, too. I’m a great believer in lettin’ the young enjoy themselves.”

She looked sharply at Janice as she spoke, but Janice was serene.

“I didn’t come to town to do anything but make Jack happy,” continued Aunt Mary, “and I see that he won’t take any fresh air without I go along—so I shall go too while I’m here. Mostly. As a general thing.”

“Mr. Mitchell called and left these flowers with his card,” Janice said, opening a huge box of roses; “and a man brought a package. Shall I open it?”

Aunt Mary’s wrinkles fairly radiated.

“Well, did I ever!” she exclaimed. “Yes; open it.”

Janice proceeded to obey, and the package was found to contain an automobile wrap, a pair of goggles and a note from Clover.

“My gracious me!” cried Aunt Mary.

“Mr. Denham sent the violets,” Janice said, pointing to a great bowl of lilac and white blossoms.

Just then the doorbell rang, and it was a ten-pound box of candy from Burnett.

Aunt Mary collapsed among her pillows.

“I _never_ did!” she murmured feebly, and then she suddenly exclaimed: “An’ to think of me livin’ up there all my life with plenty of money—” she stopped short. I tell you when you come to New York on a mission and stay for the Bacchanalia it is hard to hold consistently to either standard.

But Janice had gone for her lady’s breakfast, and after the lady had eaten it and had herself dressed for the day’s joys, Jack knocked at the door.

“Well, Aunt Mary,” he roared, when he was let in, “if you don’t look fine! You’re the freshest of the bunch to-day, sure. You’ll be ready for another night to-night, and you’ve only to say where, you know.”

“Granite did my hair,” said his aunt; “you must praise her, not me.”

“And you’ve got your goggles all ready, too,” he continued. “Who sent ’em?”

“Oh, I shan’t wiggle,” said Aunt Mary “although I can’t see how it could hurt if I did.”

“Come on and let’s dress her up,” said Jack to the maid, “Glory! what fun!”

Thereupon they went to work and rigged the old lady out. She was certainly a sight, for she stood by her own bonnet, and that failed to jibe with the goggles.

Burnett was summoned in to view the proceedings, but just as he caught the first glimpse he was taken with a fearful cramp in his broken ribs and was forced to beat the hastiest sort of a retreat.

“I hope he’ll get over it and be able to go out with us,” said Aunt Mary anxiously.

“I guess he’ll recover,” Jack yelled cheerfully. “Oh, there’s Clover!”

A sort of dull, ponderous panting sounded in the street without, and let all the neighbors know that “The Threshing Machine” (as Clover had christened his elephantine toy) was waiting for someone.

Its owner came in for a stirrup cup; Mitchell was with him. Both were togged out as if entered for the annual Paris-Bordeaux.

Burnett brought out the cut-glass jugs.

“Ye gods and little fishes! Sapristi! Sacre bleu!” he said to his friends. “Just you wait till you see our Aunt Mary!”

“Has she got ’em all on?” Clover asked.

“Has she got ’em all on!” said Burnett. “She has got ’em all on; and how Jack held his own in the room with her I cannot understand. I took one look, and if mine had been a surgical case of stitches the last thread would have bust that instant. I don’t believe I dare go out with you. This is a life and death game to Jack, and I won’t risk smashing his future by not being able to keep sober in the face of Aunt Mary.”

“Oh, come on,” Clover urged in his wiry voice. “You needn’t look at her; or, if you do look at her, you can look the other way right afterwards, you know.”

“I’ll sit next to her,” Mitchell explained. “As a sitter by Aunt Mary’s side I shone last night; and where a man has sat once, the same man can surely sit again.”

Burnett hesitated, and just then voices were heard in the hall. Jack and Janice were convoying Aunt Mary below.

Mitchell went out into the hall.

“Well, Miss Watkins,” he said, in a tone such as one would use to call down Santos-Dumont, “I’m mighty glad to see you looking so well.”

Aunt Mary turned the goggles full upon him.

“A present from Mr. Clover,” she said smiling.

“I never knew him to take so much trouble for any lady before,” said Mitchell; and as she arrived just then at the foot of the staircase he pressed her proffered hand warmly and forthwith led her in upon the two men in the library.

She looked exactly like a living edition of one of the bug pictures, and Clover had to think and swallow fast and hard to keep from being overcome. But he was true blue, and came out right side up. Aunt Mary was acclaimed on all sides, and escorted to the “bubble.”

Burnett couldn’t resist going, too, at the last moment; but, as his ribs were really tender yet, he sat in front with Clover. Jack and Mitchell sat behind, and deftly inserted the honored guest between them.

“It’s an even thing as to which is the ear-trumpet side,” Mitchell said, as they all stood about preparatory to climbing in. “Of course, that side don’t need to holler quite so loud; but then, to balance, he may get his one and only pair of front teeth knocked out any minute.”

“I’ll take that side,” said Jack. “I’m used to fighting under the inspiration of the trumpet.”

“And God be with you,” said his friend piously. “May he watch over you and bring you out safe and whole—teeth, eyes, etc.”

“Come on,” said Clover impatiently; “don’t you know this thing’s getting up power and you’re wasting it talking.”

“Curious,” laughed Burnett. “I never knew that it was gasolene that men were consuming when they kept an automobile waiting.”

And then they got in and were off—a merry load, indeed.

“Dear me, but it’s a-goin’!” Aunt Mary exclaimed, as the thing began to whiz and she felt suddenly impelled to clutch wildly at her flanking escorts. “Suppose we met a dog.”

“We’d leave a floor mat,” shrieked Mitchell. “Oh, but isn’t this great—greater—greatest?”

“Time of your life, Aunt Mary!” Jack howled, as they went over a boarded spot in the pavement, and the old lady nearly went over the back in consequence. “You’re in for the time of your life!”

“How do you like it?” yelled Clover, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

Aunt Mary started to answer, but they came to four car tracks one after another, and the successive shocks rendered her speechless.

“Where are we going?” Burnett asked.

“Nowhere,” said Clover. “Just waking up the machine.” And he turned on another million volts as he spoke.

“Oh, my bonnet!” cried poor Aunt Mary, and that bit of her adornment was in the street and had been run over four times before they could slow up, turn around, and get back to the scene of its output.

It speaks volumes for the permeating atmosphere of “having the time of your life” that its owner laughed when the wreck was shown to her.

“I don’t care a bit,” she said. “I can go down to Delmonico’s an’ get me another to-morrow mornin’, easy.”

“What a trump you are, Aunt Mary!” said Jack admiringly. “Here, Burnett, fish her out that extra cap from the cane rack; there’s always one in the bottom. There—now you won’t take cold, Aunt Mary.”

The cap, with its fore-piece, was the crowning glory of Aunt Mary’s get-up. The brain measurements of him who had bought the cap being to its present wearer’s as five is to three, the effect of its proportions, in addition to the goggles and the ear-trumpet, was such as to have overawed a survivor of Medusa’s stare.

“Oh, I say,” said Mitchell, “it’s a sin to keep as good a joke as this in the family! We must drive her around town until the night falls down or the battery burns out.”

“I say so too,” said Burnett. “This is more sport than oiling railroad tracks and seeing old Tweedwell brought up for it. Say, set her a-buzzing again. It’s a big game, isn’t it?”

Clover thought so, with the result that they speeded through tranquil neighborhoods and churned leisurely where the masses seethed until countless thousands were wondering what under the sun those four young fellows had in the back of their car.

The sad part about all good fun is that it has to end sooner or later; and about six o’clock the whole party began to be aware that, if refreshments were not taken, their end was surely close at hand. They therefore called a brief halt somewhere to get what is technically known as a “sandwich,” and the results were thoroughly satisfactory to everyone but Aunt Mary. She took one bite of her sandwich, and then opened it with an abruptness which merged into disgust when it proved to be full of fish eggs.

“Why didn’t you tell me what it was made of?” she asked in annoyance. “I feel just as if I’d swallowed a marsh—a green one!”

“That’s a shame!” said Clover indignantly. “I’ll get you something that will take that taste out of your mouth double quick. Here!” he called to a waiter, and then he gave the man certain careful directions.

The latter nodded wisely, and a few minutes later brought in a tiny glass containing a pousse-café in three different colors.

“It’s a cocktail. Drink it quick,” Clover directed.

Aunt Mary demurred.

“I never drank a cocktail,” she began.

“No time like the present to begin,” said Clover, “you’ll have to learn some day.”

“Cocktails,” said Mitchell, “are the advance guard of a newer and brighter civilization. They—”

“If she’s going to take it at all she must take it now,” said Clover authoritatively. “The green and the yellow are beginning to run together. Quick now!”

His confiding guest drank quick and became the three different colors quicker yet.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked anxiously.

Aunt Mary was speechless.

“He mixed it wrong,” said Clover in a sad, discouraged tone. “What she ought to have got first she got last, that’s all. The cocktail is upside down inside of her, and the effect of it is upside down on the outside of her.”

“Feel any better now, Aunt Mary?” Jack yelled.

“I can’t seem to keep the purple swallowed,” said the poor old lady. “I want to go home. I’ve always been a great believer in going home when you feel like I do now. In general—as a rule.”

“I would strongly recommend your obeying her wishes,” said Mitchell, with great earnestness. “There’s a time for all things, and, in my opinion, she’s had about all the queer tastes that she can absorb for to-day. Things being as they are and mainly as they shouldn’t be, I cast my vote in with what looks as if it would soon become the losing side, and vote to bubble back for all we’re worth.”

There was a general acquiescence in his view of the case, which led them all to pile into “The Threshing Machine” with unaffected haste and rush Aunt Mary bedward as rapidly as was possible considering the hour and the policemen.

Janice received her mistress with the tender welcome that every prodigal may count on and was especially expeditious with tea and toast and a robe de nuit. Aunt Mary sighed luxuriously when she felt herself finally tucked up.

“After all, Granite,” she said dreamily, “there’s nothin’ like gettin’ stretched out to think it over—is there?”

But Janice was turning out the lights.

Chapter Fifteen Aunt Mary Enthralled

Jack’s aunt slept long and dreamlessly again. That thrice-blessed sleep which follows nights abroad in the metropolis.

When, toward four o’clock, Aunt Mary opened her eyes, she was at first almost as hazy in her conceptions as she had found herself upon the previous day.

“I feel as if the automobile was runnin’ up my back and over my head,” she said, thoughtfully passing her hand along the machine’s imaginary course. Then she rang her bell and Janice appeared from the room beyond.

“I guess you’d better give me some of that that you gave me yesterday,” the elderly lady suggested; “what do you think?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Janice—and went at once and brought it in separate glasses on a tray, and mixed it by pouring, while Aunt Mary looked on with an intuitive understanding that passed instinct and bordered on a complete comprehension of things to her hitherto unknown.

“They’d ought to advertise that,” she said, as she set down the empty glass a few seconds later. “There’d be a lot of folks who’d be glad to know there was such a thing when they first wake up mornin’s after—after—well, mornin’s after anythin’. It’s jus’ what you want right off; it sort of runs through your hair and makes you begin to remember.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Janice, turning to put down the tray, and then crossing the room to seek something on the chimney-piece.

Aunt Mary gave a sudden twist,—as if the drink had infused an effervescing energy into her frame. “Well what am I goin’ to do to-day?” she asked.

“Mr. Denham has written out your engagements here,” said Janice, handing her a jeweler’s box as she spoke.

Aunt Mary tore off the tissue paper with trembling haste—lifted the cover—and beheld a tiny ivory and gold memoranda card.

“Well, that boy!” she ejaculated.

“Shall I read the list aloud to you?” the maid inquired.

“Yes, read it.”

So Janice read the dates proposed the night before and Aunt Mary sat up in bed, held her ear-trumpet, and beamed beatifically.

“I don’t believe I ever can do all that,” she said when Janice paused; “I never was one to rush around pell-mell, but I’ve always been a great believer in lettin’ other folks enjoy themselves an’ I shall try not to interfere.”

Janice hung the tiny memoranda up beside its owner’s watch and stood at attention for further orders.

“But I d’n know I’m sure what I can wear to-night,” continued the one in bed; “you know my bonnet was run over yesterday.”

“Was it?”

“Yes,—it was the most sudden thing I ever saw. I thought it was the top of my head at first.”

“Was it spoiled?”

“Well, it wouldn’t do for me again and I don’t really believe it would even do for Lucinda. We didn’t bring it home with us anyhow an’ so its no use talkin’ of it any more. I’m sure I wish I’d brought my other with me. It wasn’t quite as stylish, but it set so good on my head. As it is I ain’t got any bonnet to wear an’ we’re goin’ in a box, Jack says,—I should hate to look wrong in a box.”

“But ladies in boxes do not wear anything,” cried Janice reasuringly.

Aunt Mary jumped.

“Not _anything?_”

“On their heads.”

“Oh!—Well, then the bonnet half of me’ll be all right, but what _shall_ I wear on the rest of me? I don’t want to look out of fashion, you know. My, but I wish I’d brought my Paisley shawl. I’ve got a Paisley shawl that’s a very rare pattern. There’s cocoanuts in the border and a twisted design of monkeys and their tails done in the center. An’ there ain’t a moth hole in it—not one.”

Janice looked out of the window.

“I’ve got a cameo pin, too,” continued Aunt Mary reflectively. “My, but that’s a handsome pin, as I remember it. It’s got Jupiter on it holdin’ a bunch of thunder and lightnin’ an’ receivin’ the news of somebody’s bein’ born—I used to know the whole story. But, you see, I expected to just be sittin’ by Jack’s bed and I never thought to bring any of those dress-up kind of things,” she sighed.

Janice returned to the bed side.

“Hadn’t you better begin to dress?” she howled suggestively. “They are going to dine here before going to the theater and dinner is ordered in an hour.”

“Maybe I had,” said Aunt Mary, “but—oh dear—I don’t know what I _will_ wear!” She began to emerge from the bedclothes as she spoke.

“How would my green plaid waist do?” she asked earnestly.

“I think it would be lovely,” shrieked the maid.

“Well, shake it out then,” said Aunt Mary, “it ought to be in the fashion—all the silk they put in the sleeves. An’ if you’ll do my hair just as you did it yesterday—”

“Yes, I will.”

Then the labor of the toilette began in good earnest, and three-quarters of an hour later Aunt Mary was done, and sitting by the window while Janice laced her boots.

A rap sounded at the door.

“Come in,” cried the maid.

It was Jack with a regular fagot of American Beauties.

“Well, Aunt Mary,” he cried with his customary hearty greeting. “How!”

“How what?” asked Aunt Mary, whose knowledge of Sioux social customs had been limited by the border line of New England.

Jack laughed. “How are you?” he asked in correction of his imperfect phrasing. And then he handed over the rose wood.

“I’m pretty well,” said his aunt; “but, my goodness you mustn’t bring me so many presents—you—”

Jack stopped her words with a kiss. “Now, Aunt Mary, don’t you scold, because you’re my company and I won’t have it. This is my treat, and just don’t you fret. What do you say to your roses?”

Aunt Mary looked a bit uneasy.

“They’re pretty big,” she hesitated.

“That’s the fashion,” said Jack; “the longer you can buy ’em the better the girls like it. I tried to get you some eight feet long but they only had two of that number and I wanted the whole bunch to match—”

He was interrupted by another rap on the door.

“Hallo!” he cried. “Come in.”

It was Mitchell with several dozen carnations, the most brilliant yet prized—or priced.

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Aunt Mary.

“For you, Miss Watkins,” cried the newcomer, gracefully offering his homage, “with the assurance of my sincere regret that I came on the scene too late to have been making a scene with you fifty years ago.”

“I didn’t quite catch that,” said Aunt Mary, rapturously. But never mind,—Granite, get a tin basin or suthin’ for these flowers.”

“Where’s Burnett?” Jack asked the newcomer,—“isn’t he dressed? It’s getting late.”

“He’s all right,” said Mitchell; “he and Clover are—here they are!”

The two came in together at that second. Clover’s mustache just showed over the top of the largest bunch of violets ever constructed, and Burnett bore with assiduous care a bouquet of orchids tied with a Roman sash.

Aunt Mary leaned back and shut her eyes. If it hadn’t been for her smile, they might possibly have feared for her life.

But she was only momentarily stunned by surpassing ecstasy.

“You’d better put some water in the bath-tub, Granite,” she said, recovering, “nothing else will be big enough.”

The four young men drew up chairs and rivalled her smiles with theirs.

“I d’n know how I ever can thank you,” said the old lady warmly. “I’ve always had such a poor opinion o’ life in cities, too!”

“Life in cities, my dear Miss Watkins,” screamed Mitchell, “is always pictured as very black, but it’s only owing to the soft coal—not to the people who burn it.”

Aunt Mary smiled again.

“I guess the bath-tub will be big enough to keep ’em fresh,” she said simply, and Mitchell gave up and dried his forehead with his handkerchief.

They dined at home upon this occasion and afterwards took two carriages for the theater. Aunt Mary, Jack, Clover, the American Beauties and the violets went in the first, and what remained of the party and the floral decorations followed in the second.

“I mean to smoke,” said that part of the second load which habitually answered to the name of Mitchell. “There is nothing so soothing when you have thorns in your legs as a cigarette in your mouth.”

“Too—too;” laughed his companion. “Jimmy! but our aunt is game, isn’t she?”

“To my order of thinking,” said Mitchell thoughtfully scratching a match, “Aunt Mary has been hung up in cold storage just long enough to have acquired the exactly proper gamey flavor. It cannot be denied that to worn, worldly, jaded mortals like you and me, the sight of fresh, ever bubbling, youthful enthusiasm like hers is as thrilling and trilling and rilling as—as—as—” he paused to light his cigarette.

“Yes, you’d better stutter,” said Burnett. “I thought you were running ahead of your proper signals.”

“It isn’t that,” said Mitchell, puffing gently. “It is that I suddenly recollected that I was alone with you, and my brains tell me that it is a waste of brains to use them in the sense of a plural noun with you. The word in your company,—my dear boy—only comes to me as a verb—as an active verb—and dear knows how often I have itched to apply it forcibly.”

Then they drew up in front of the theater and saw Aunt Mary being unloaded just beyond.

“Great Scott, I feel as if I was a part of a poster!” said Burnett, diving into the carriage depths for the last lot of flowers.

“I feel as if I were a part of the Revelation,” said Mitchell, “I mean—the Revel-eration.”

They rapidly formed on somewhat after the plan of the famous “Marriage under the Directoire.” Aunt Mary commanded the center-rush, leaning on Jack’s arm, and the rest acted as half-backs, left wings, or flower-bearers, just as the reader prefers.

They made quite a sensation as they proceeded to their box and more yet when they entered it. They were late—very late—as is the privilege of all box parties and their seating problem absorbed the audience to a degree never seen before or since.

Jack put Aunt Mary and her green plaid waist in the middle and flanked her with purple violets and red carnations. The ear-trumpet was laid upon the orchids just where she could reach it easily. Then her escorts took positions as a sort of half-moon guard behind and each held two or three American Beauties straight up and down as if they were the insignia of his rank and office.

The effect was gorgeous. The very actors saw and were interested at once. They directed all their attention to that one box, and at the end of the act the stage manager got the writer of the topical song on the wire and had a brand new and very apropos verse added which brought down the house.

Jack and his party caught on and clapped like mad, Aunt Mary beat the front of the box with her ear-trumpet, and when Clover suggested that she throw some flowers to the heroine she threw the orchids and came near maiming the bass viol for life. Burnett rushed out between acts and bought her a cane to pound with, Jack rushed out between more acts and bought her a pair of opera glasses, Mitchell rushed out between still further acts and procured her one of those Japanese fans which they use for fire-screens, and agitated it around her during the rest of the evening.

“Time of your life, Aunt Mary,” Jack vociferated under the cover of a general chorus; “Time of your life!”

“Oh, my,” said Aunt Mary, heaving a great sigh, “seems if I’d _die_ when I think of Lucinda.”

They got out of the theater somewhat after eleven and Clover took them all to a French café for supper, so that again it was pretty well along into the day after when Janice regained her charge.

“Granite,” said Aunt Mary very solemnly, as she collapsed upon her bed twenty minutes later yet, “put it down on that memoranda for me never to find no fault with nothing ever again. Never—not ever—not never again.”

The second day after was that which had been set for Mitchell’s yachting party. They allowed a day to lapse between because a yachting party has to begin early enough so that you can see to get on board. Mitchell wanted his to begin early enough so that they could see the yacht too.

“A yacht, Miss Watkins,” he said into the ear trumpet, “is a delight that it takes daylight to delight in. If my words sound somewhat mixed, believe me, it is the effect of what is to come casting its shadow before. I speak with understanding and sympathy—you will know all later.”

Aunt Mary smiled sweetly. Sometimes she thought that Mitchell was the nicest of the three—times when she wasn’t talking to Clover or Burnett.

Jack took his aunt out to drive on the afternoon of the intervening day and bought her a blue suit with a red tape around one arm, and some rubbersoled shoes, and a yachting cap and a mackintosh. There was something touching in Aunt Mary’s joyful confidence and anticipation—she having never been cast loose from shore in all her life.

“When do you s’pose we’ll get home?” she asked Jack.

“Oh, some time toward night,” he replied.

She smiled with a trust as colossal as Trusts usually are.

“I’m sure I shall have a good time,” she said. “I always liked to see pictures of waves.”

“You’ll see the real things now, Aunt Mary,” cried her nephew heartily. He was not a bit malicious, possessing a stomach whose equilibrium could not conceive any other anatomical condition.

Janice, however, had doubts, and on the morning of the next day her doubts deepened. She looked from the window and shook her head.

“Feel a fly?” inquired Aunt Mary.

“No, I see some clouds,” yelled her maid.

“I didn’t ask you to speak loud,” said the old lady. “I always hear what you say. Always.”

Janice went out of the room and voiced her views of the weather to the proprietors of the expedition. The proprietors were having an uproarious breakfast on ham and eggs—all but Mitchell, who sat somewhat aloof and contented himself with an old and reliable breakfast food long known to his race.

“Are you really going to take her up the Sound to-day?” the maid demanded of the merry mob.

“I’m not,” said Burnett; “it’s the yacht that’s going to take her. Pass the syrup, Jack, like the jack you are.”

“Doesn’t she feel well?” Jack asked, passing the syrup as requested. “If she doesn’t feel well, of course, we won’t go.”

“I like that,” said Mitchell, “when it’s my day for my party and my cook all provisioned with provisions for provisioning us all. How long do you suppose ice cream stays together in this month of roses, anyhow?”

“She is very well,” said the maid quietly, “but it’s blowing pretty fresh here in the city and I thought that out on the Sound—”

“Blowing fresh, is it?” laughed Burnett; “well, it’ll salt her fast enough when we get out. Don’t you fuss over what’s none of your business, my dear girl; just trot along upstairs and dress dolly, and when she’s dressed we’ll take her off your hands.”

Jack appeared unduly quiet.

“Do you think it is going to storm?” he asked Mitchell. Mitchell was scraping his saucer with the thrift that thrives north of the Firth of Forth and hatches yachts on the west shores of the Atlantic.

“I don’t think at all during vacation,” he said mildly. “I repose and reap ‘Oh’s’—from other people.”

“If there was any chance of a storm——?” said the nephew, thoughtfully.

“Fiddle-dee-dee,” said Burnett impatiently, “what do you think yachts are for, anyhow? To let alone?” He looked at the maid as he spoke and pointed significantly to the door. She went out at once and returned upstairs to her mistress whom she found quite restless to “get-a-goin’” as she expressed it.

The boxes filled with yesterday’s purchases were brought out at once and Janice proceeded to rubber-sole and blue-serge Aunt Mary. The latter regarded every step of the performance in the huge three-fold cheval glass which had been wont to tell Mrs. Rosscott things that every woman longs to know.

When her toilette was complete it must be admitted that as a yachtswoman Aunt Mary fairly outshone her automobile portrait. She surveyed herself long and carefully.

“I expect it’ll be quite an experience,” she said with many new wrinkles of anticipation.

“Yes,” said Janice, with a glance at the fluttering window curtains, “I expect it will be.”

Aunt Mary went downstairs and was greeted with loud acclamations. The breakfast party broke up at once and, while Janice phoned for cabs, Aunt Mary’s quartette of escorts sought hats, coats, etcetera. After that they all sallied forth and took their places as joyfully as ever.

It was quite a long drive to where “Lady Belle” had been brought up, and they had to stop once to lay in two or three pounds of current literature.

“Do you read mostly?” asked Aunt Mary.

“It’s best to be on the safe side,” said Clover vaguely.

Then they entered the tangle of docks and express wagons and obstacles in general and Mitchell had great difficulty in finding where his launch had been taken to meet them.

But at last they got Aunt Mary down a flight of very slippery steps and into a boat whose everything was labeled “Lady Belle,” and Mitchell said something and they cast loose and were off.

“Seems rather a small yacht,” said Aunt Mary, glancing cheerfully about. “I ain’t surprised that you’d rather come in nights.”

“Bless your heart, Aunt Mary,” shrieked Jack, “this isn’t the yacht, this is the way we get to her.”

“Oh,” said Aunt Mary blankly.

“That’s the yacht,” yelled Burnett, “that white one with the black smoke coming out and the sail up.”

“What are they getting up steam for?” asked Clover. “The time to get up steam is when you get down sails generally.”

“They aren’t getting up steam,” said Mitchell, “they’re getting up dinner. It looks like a lot of smoke because of the shadow on the sail. And, speaking of getting up dinner, reminds me that the topic before us now is, how in thunder are we to get up Aunt Mary?”

“Put a rope around her and board her as if she was a cavalry horse,” suggested Burnett.

“I scorn the suggestion,” said their host; “if the worst comes to the worst I can give her a back up, but I trust that Aunt Mary will rise to the heights of the sail and the situation all at once and not make me do any vertebratical stunts so early in the day.”

They were running alongside of “Lady Belle” as he spoke, and the first thing Aunt Mary knew she and her party were attached to the former by some mysterious and not altogether solid connection.

“What do we do now?” she asked uneasily.

“I’ll show you,” laughed Burnett, and seizing two flapping ropes he went skipping up a sort of stepladder and sprang upon the deck above.

Aunt Mary started to emulate his prowess and stood up at once. But the next second she sat down extremely hard without knowing why she had done so.

“Hold on, Miss Watkins,” Mitchell cried hastily; “just you hold on until I give you something to hold on to, and when you’ve got something to hold on to, please keep holding on to it, until I tell you that the hour has come in which to let go again.”

“I didn’t quite catch that,” said Aunt Mary, “but I’m ready to do anythin’ you say if you only—” and again she sprang up and again was thrown down as hard as before.

“Look out,” cried Jack, springing to her side; and he got hold of his valuable relative and held her fast while Mitchell grasped the ladder and a sailor strove to keep the launch still.

“Now, Aunt Mary,” cried the nephew, “hang on to me and hang on to those ropes and remember I’m right back of you—”