out eleven o'clock. Fanny had
retired, and was presumably asleep, but George, on the way to his own
room, paused before her door, and serenaded her in a full baritone:

"As I walk along the Boy de Balong
With my independent air,
The people all declare,
'He must be a millionaire!'
Oh, you hear them sigh, and wish to die,
And see them wink the other eye.
At the man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo!"

Isabel came from George's room, where she had been reading, waiting for
him. "I'm afraid you'll disturb your father, dear. I wish you'd sing
more, though--in the daytime! You have a splendid voice."

"Good-night, old lady!"

"I thought perhaps I--Didn't you want me to come in with you and talk a
little?"

"Not to-night. You go to bed. Good-night, old lady!"

He kissed her hilariously, entered his room with a skip, closed his door
noisily; and then he could be heard tossing things about, loudly humming
"The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo."

Smiling, his mother knelt outside his door to pray; then, with her
"Amen," pressed her lips to the bronze door-knob; and went silently to
her own apartment.

After breakfasting in bed, George spent the next morning at his
grandfather's and did not encounter his Aunt Fanny until lunch, when she
seemed to be ready for him.

"Thank you so much for the serenade, George!" she said. "Your poor
father tells me he'd just got to sleep for the first time in two nights,
but after your kind attentions he lay awake the rest of last night."

"Perfectly true," Mr. Minafer said grimly.

"Of course, I didn't know, sir," George hastened to assure him. "I'm
awfully sorry. But Aunt Fanny was so gloomy and excited before I went
out, last evening, I thought she needed cheering up."

"I!" Fanny jeered. "I was gloomy? I was excited? You mean about that
engagement?"

"Yes. Weren't you? I thought I heard you worrying over somebody's being
engaged. Didn't I hear you say you'd heard Mr. Eugene Morgan was engaged
to marry some pretty little seventeen-year-old girl?"

Fanny was stung, but she made a brave effort. "Did you ask Lucy?" she
said, her voice almost refusing the teasing laugh she tried to make it
utter. "Did you ask her when Fred Kinney and she--"

"Yes. That story wasn't true. But the other one--" Here he stared at
Fanny, and then affected dismay. "Why, what's the matter with your face,
Aunt Fanny? It seems agitated!"

"Agitated!" Fanny said d