do, too. I did speak about someone who was very rich,
and would be kind to me. I rather think--I remember now--I _guessed_
you imagined it was a man; but that seemed the greatest joke, so I
didn't try to undeceive you. Fancy your believing that, all this time,
though, and thinking about it!"

"I've thought of it on an average once every three minutes," said Jack.

"You're chaffing now, of course. Why, the person I hoped might be kind
to me in England is an old lady--oh, but such a funny old lady!--who
wanted me to be her companion, and said, no matter when I came, if it
were years from now, I must let her know, for she would like to have me
with her to help chase away a dragon of a maid she's afraid of. I met
her only once, in the train the night before I arrived at Cannes; but
she and I got to be the greatest friends, and her bulldog, Beau--."

"Her bulldog, Beau!"

"A perfect lamb, though he looks like a cross between a crocodile and a
gnome. The old lady's name is Miss Paget--"

"My aunt!"

I stared at Jack, not knowing how to take this exclamation. The few
Englishmen I met when mamma and I were together, or when I lived with
the Milvaines, were rather fond of using that ejaculation when it was
apparently quite irrelevant. If you told a youthful Englishman that you
were not allowed to walk or bicycle alone in the Bois, he was as likely
as not to say "My aunt!" In fact, whatever surprised him was apt to
elicit this cry. I have known several young men who gave vent to it at
intervals of from half to three-quarters of an hour; but I had never
before heard Jack make the exclamation, so when I had looked at him and
he had looked at me in an emotional kind of silence for a few seconds, I
asked him, "Why 'My aunt'?"

"Because she is my aunt."

"Surely not my Miss Paget?"

"I should think it highly improbable that your Miss Paget and my Miss
Paget could be the same, if you hadn't mentioned her bulldog, Beau.
There can't be a quantity of Miss Pagets going about the world with
bulldogs named Beau. Only my Miss Paget never does go about the world.
She hates travelling."

"So does mine. She said that being in a train was no pursuit for a
gentlewoman."

"That sounds like her. She's quite mad."

"She seemed very kind."

"I'm glad she did--to you. She has seemed rather the contrary to me."

"Oh, what did she do to you?"

"Did her best to spoil my life, that's all--with the best intentions, no
doubt. Still, by Jo