send back the money spent by persons you hypnotized to
conduct you through the different countries?"

"No. That was different. I--don't exactly know why, but it was. And you
needn't look at me so queerly. I've never done anything to be ashamed
of."

"I'd knock the person down who suggested that you had," said I. "I was
looking at you because I was thinking you more marvelous than ever. You
hypnotize _me_. You hypnotize everybody. I suppose you hypnotized the
editor into giving you your job?"

"Perhaps I did," she laughed. "Often I can get people to do things for
me--big things--if I want them to very much."

"You could get me to do anything!" I exclaimed. "You're a witch, and
what's more, I believe you're a beauty. Great Scott! How you grow on
one! Can this be why--because you are You--that in my heart of hearts I
don't care a rap if Nell and Phyllis are engaged to others? I wonder if
my instinct saw under the gray hair and blue glasses? Look here, are you
Miss or Mrs. Mary Milton? and if you're Mrs., are you a widow, grass, or
otherwise?"

She laughed. "Why, how old do you take me to be? As an aunt, my official
age was over forty. But Miss Mary Milton isn't much more than half Lady
MacNairne's age. It's as good to throw off the years as the wig and the
spectacles. I'm only twenty-three. I haven't had _time_ to marry yet,
thank goodness!"

"Thank goodness!" I echoed. "And thank goodness for You as you are. You
seem to me perfect."

"But I should never have done like this, for an aunt."

"Certainly not. But to think I should have been wasting you all this
time as a mere aunt!"

"I wasn't wasted. I saved you lots of things--if I didn't save you
money. Really, I _did_ earn my salary--though you often thought me
officious."

"Never!"

"Not when I kept you from proposing to Nell Van Buren?"

"That was a blessing in disguise."

"Like myself. But truly, I only did it to spare you humiliation in the
end. I knew all along that she was in love with Rudolph
Brederode--though perhaps _she_ wouldn't have found it out so soon if it
hadn't been for me."

"You've been our good genius all round," said I. "And I owe you----"

"Now, don't offer me more rewards! It was fun wheedling things from you
at first; but bribes have been getting on my nerves lately. The play was
played out."

"Let's pretend it was only a curtain-raiser," I suggested. "I'd like you
to be 'on' in the next piece, in the leading part. Mary Milton