see myself
planted ten miles out on an R. F. D. route, even with college-bred help.
Pardon me if I light another dope-stick."

I could get her idea easy enough, by then. Claire wasn't half so sporty
as she hoped she was. It was just her way of doing the carry-on for Aunt
Clara Lamar. But, at the same time, we couldn't help feelin' kind of
sorry for Mrs. Parker Smith. She was tryin' to be so nice and friendly,
and she wasn't gettin' anywhere.

It was by way of switchin' the line of table chat, I expect, that Vee
breaks in with that remark about the only piece of jewelry the old girl
is wearin'.

"What a duck of a bracelet!" says Vee. "An heirloom, is it?"

"Almost," says Mrs. Parker Smith. "It was given to me on my
twenty-second birthday, in Florence."

She slips it off and passes it over for inspection. The part that goes
around the wrist is all of fine chain-work, silver and gold, woven
almost like cloth, and on top is a cameo, 'most as big as a clam.

"How stunning! Look, Torchy. O-o-oh!" says Vee, gaspin' a little.

In handling the thing she must have pressed a catch somewhere, for the
cameo springs back, revealin' a locket effect underneath with a picture
in it. Course, we couldn't help seein'.

"Why--why----" says Vee, gazin' from the picture to Mrs. Parker Smith.
"Isn't this a portrait of--of----"

"Of a very silly young woman," cuts in Auntie. "We waited in Florence a
week to have that finished."

"Then--then it is you!" asks Vee.

The lady in gray nods. Vee asks if she may show it to Claire.

"Why not?" says Mrs. Parker Smith, smilin'.

We didn't stop to explain. I passes it on to Claire, and then we both
watches her face. For the dinky little picture under the cameo is a dead
ringer for the one Claire had shown us in the silver frame. So it was
Claire's turn to catch a short breath.

"Don't tell me," says she, "that--that you are Clara Lamar?"

Which was when Auntie got her big jolt. For a second the pink fades out
of her cheeks, and the salad fork she'd been holdin' rattles into her
plate. She makes a quick recovery, though.

"I was--once," says she. "I had hoped, though, that the name had been
forgotten. Tell me, how--how do you happen to----"

"Why," says Claire, "uncle had the scrapbook habit. Anyway, I found this
one in an old desk, and it was all about you. Your picture was in it,
too. And say, Auntie, you were the real thing, weren't you?"

After that it was a reg'lar reunion. For C