n her sharing his luxurious homes and acting as chaperon to the
two girls. That she was a little trying he knew perfectly, but his
sense of fair play and kinship resolutely turned a deaf ear to the
half-spoken pleas of the girls, that he would give her instead a cosy
home of her own, and procure a younger and brighter chaperon for them;
and she had now become a fixture.

But what irritated Diana so was the fact that had the good lady
consulted her own taste, she would infinitely have preferred the cosy,
independent home; but just as Henry's sense of fair play offered her a
place in his, so her sense of duty to the two motherless girls made
her accept it in spite of her inclination.

"If people would but consult their comfort instead of their duty,"
quoth poor Diana, "how much nicer it would be all round! Uncle doesn't
really want her here, and she doesn't really want to come, and we'd
give our heads to be rid of her; but just because Old Man Duty loves
to make people supremely uncomfortable, here we all are!" and her
expressive gesture made further comment unnecessary.

But, as a matter of fact, she made a very easy and good-natured
chaperon, and it was only some of her irritating little ways that
troubled them. Without being really deaf, she usually failed to hear
any opening speech, and this Diana coped with very summarily. "Aunt
Emily," she would begin. "Eh ... eh ... eh ... eh ... ah," and when
Aunt Emily had duly enquired, "What did you say, my dear?" she would
speak her sentence for the first time. Or, again, with reference to
her propensity to get exceedingly worked up upon a subject of very
little general interest, she would say, "The great point is, not to
start her off, and not to give her a chance to start herself off. A
little perspicacity will soon tell you what subject to nip in the bud,
or when to talk as hard and fast as you can about something else."

"And as for her mournfulness," declared the matter-of-fact young
heiress, "well, that's genuinely funny. If I've got a bit of a hump
myself, and I hear Aunt Emily, with a face of heroic resignation, say,
'I can bear it,' I begin to feel quite chirpy at once."

But when the Rhodesian project came seriously under discussion, they
were all a good deal surprised to hear Aunt Emily take part in it as
one who must inevitably be of the party. Henry Pym was a reserved,
undemonstrative man, and when Meryl begged him to let them accompany
him on his travels, th