more than if she had been a railway barrier with "Stop! Look!
Listen!" painted on her high white forehead.

We slowed down: the Grayles-Grice, the Wilmot, the Hippo, and our
Hiawatha, as we have lately named our car.

Aunt Mary descended the steps and came to the gate. Jack jumped out,
forgetting he was lame, and nearly fell. I screamed. Every one scrambled
or leaped or slid to the rescue; and that was the way in which
Providence arranged for Peter Storm and Pat Moore and Larry, to say
nothing of those who mattered less, to become Aunt Mary's guests.
Providence is not too important a word, as you will see when I tell you
as much as I'm allowed to tell, about--what came of the visit.

Aunt Mary has many virtues. They stick out all over her like pins, but
there are some which aren't uncomfortably sharp. Her hospitality, for
instance. This house of hers at Wenham isn't one of the prettiest in the
place, but it is white and dignified, and the over-arching trees give
it charm. Aunt Mary is proud of it, and I think she was really pleased
to welcome the crowd. Besides, when she was in New York on business,
cutting coupons or something, Jack and I talked to her about Larry and
Pat. She was very interested, and said she had been taken to Kidd's
Pines to a garden party, some fifteen years ago, by Cousin John Randolph
Payton, who left me Awepesha, you know. She thought that she still had
some snapshots of the garden which she had taken herself that afternoon.
In those days, it seemed, she had threatened to develop a craze for
photography, but had found that it "interfered too seriously with her
more intellectual pursuits." However, she used to paste her trophies in
scrapbooks, and she said that when she got home from New York she would
look up the volume of that date. It ought to be in the attic, though she
had not seen it for a number of years.

Jack and I thought she would forget about this, and we had indeed
forgotten it ourselves when we arrived at Wenham. Aunt Mary, however,
had not. She greeted Larry warmly (for her) and assured him that, if her
niece had kept her informed of the route, she would have written or
telegraphed asking the whole party to tea. Not knowing our whereabouts,
she could not do this, but was delighted to find the cars stopping at
her door, and hoped that their occupants would all take tea with her.

Every one was simply stuffed with scones and chocolate cake, but such
was the look in Aunt Mary's ey