ave to joke to be a joke, Aunt Bell."

"But what if he were funny? Why is that so important?"

"Oh, it's important because of the other thing that you know you know
when you know that."

"Mercy! Child, you should have a cup of cocoa or something before you
start off--really--"

The last long hatpin seemingly pierced the head of Nancy and she turned
from the glass to fumble on her gloves.

"Aunt Bell, if Allan tells me once more in that hurt, gentle tone that I
don't please him, I believe I shall be the freest of free women--ready
to live."

She paused to look vacantly into the wall. "Sometimes, you know, I seem
to wake up with a clear mind--but the day clouds it. We shouldn't
believe so many falsities, Aunt Bell, if they didn't pinch our brains
into it at a tender age. I should know Allan through and through at a
glance to-day, if I met him for the first time; but he kneaded my poor
girl's brain this way and that, till I'd have been done for, Aunt Bell,
if some one else hadn't kneaded and patted it into other ways, so that
little memories come back and stay with me--little bits of sweetness and
genuineness--of _realness_, Aunt Bell."

"Nance, you are morbid--and I think you're wrong to go up there to be
alone with your sick fancies--why are you going, Nance?"

"Aunt Bell, can I really trust you not to betray me? Will you promise to
keep the secret if I actually tell you?"

Aunt Bell looked at once important and trustworthy, yet of an
incorruptible propriety.

"I'm sure, my dear, you would not ask me to keep secret anything that
your husband would be--"

"Dear, no! You can keep mum with a spotless conscience."

"Of course; I was sure of that!"

"What a fraud you are, Aunt Bell--you weren't sure at all--but I shall
disappoint you. Now my reason--" She came close and spoke low--"My
reason for going to Edom, whatever it is, is so utterly silly that I
haven't even dared to tell myself--so, you see--my _real_ reason for
going is simply to find out what my reason really is. I'm dying to know.
There! Now never say I didn't trust you."

In the first shock of this fall from her anticipations Aunt Bell
neglected to remember that All is Good. Yet she was presently far enough
mollified to accompany her niece to the station.

Returning from thence after she had watched Nancy through the gate to
the 3:05 Edom local, Aunt Bell lingered at the open study door of the
rector of St. Antipas. He looked up cordially.

"Y