it's because it's what he
always does."

Vera began to laugh.

"Tell Bertie he need not trouble to call about it, I'd rather forget
it."

"Oh, of course he won't _now_!"

"He doesn't know, then, that I was in love with him? Besides, I wasn't."

"Certainly he doesn't. Besides, you weren't."

"I hate the sight of that bouquet," said Vera.

"Yes, let's send it away; and now come for a drive with me."

"All right, dear. I say, couldn't we countermand those philosophical
books?"

"Yes, of course we will. What do you feel you'd like instead?"

"Oh, something by Pett Ridge," said Vera, recklessly.

CHAPTER XXVII

AUNT WILLIAM'S DAY

It was a chilly spring afternoon and Aunt William was seated by the fire
doing wool-work, for she disapproved of the idle habits of the present
day and thought that a lady should always have her fingers employed in
some way; not, of course, either with cards or cigarettes. She was
getting on steadily with the foot-stool she was making; a neat design of
a fox's head with a background of green leaves. In the course of her
life Aunt William had done many, many miles of wool-work. It was neither
embroidery nor tapestry; it was made on canvas with what is known for
some mysterious reason as Berlin wool; and was so simple that it used to
be called the Idiot Stitch; but the curious elaboration of the design
and sort of dignified middle-Victorian futility about it cast a glamour
over the whole, and dispelled any association of idiocy from the
complete work. A banner screen was now in front of the fire, which Aunt
William had worked during a winter at St. Leonards, and which
represented enormous squashed roses like purple cauliflowers, with a
red-brown background--a shade called, in her youth, Bismarck brown, and
for which she always retained a certain weakness.

It was her day, and on Aunt William's day she invariably wore a
shot-silk dress, shot with green and violet; the bodice trimmed with
bugles, the skirt plain and flowing. Aunt William did not have that
straight-fronted look that is such a consolation to our modern women who
are getting on in years, but went in decidedly at the waist, her figure
being like a neat pincushion. Her voice was deep, her mind of a somewhat
manly and decided order, so that the touches of feminine timidity or
sentiment taught her in early youth sat oddly enough on her now. In
reality she hated wool-work, but did it partly from tradition and partly