having to
drop her title when she changed her name, and at being able to retain
the same initials for her monogram.

CHAPTER XV

"To sell a bargain well is as cunning
as fast and loose."--_Shakespeare_.

"Now I want you to listen to me, Leonie!"

"I am, Auntie!"

"I mean _seriously_! I want to talk about myself for one thing, and
our very straitened means, which do not permit us to go on living even
like this; and oh! lots of other things."

"Right, darling!" said her niece, moving across the room to sit on a
broad stool at her relation's feet, but twisting her head to one side
with a quick movement when her aunt laid her hand dramatically upon the
tawny hair.

"Please, Auntie, don't! I can't bear to have my head touched!"

"Just what I want to talk about!" vaguely said Susan Hetth as she tried
to disentangle an old-fashioned ring which had unfortunately caught a
few shining hairs in its loose setting.

"Please don't touch my _head_, Auntie!" repeated Leonie as she sat
back. "Let my hair _go_, please!"

"I'm not touching your hair, child," impatiently replied the elder
woman. "It's got caught in one of my rings!"

Leonie's eyes were almost closed in a strange kind of psychological
agony; then just as though she acted unconsciously she seized her
aunt's hands and pulled them quickly from her head, tearing out the
hair entangled in the ring by the roots.

"I can't stand it, Auntie. I have never been able to bear anyone
touching my head," she said very quietly.

"I think you're insane at times, Leonie, _really_ I do!"

The terrible words were out, and for one long moment the two women
stared into each other's eyes.

"You think I am insane at times," whispered Leonie. "_You_--Auntie,
_you_ think I am _insane_!"

And the elder woman, floundering in dismay at the awful effect of her
unconsidered words, sank to her neck in a bog of explanation.

"No! Leonie--no, of course not--I wasn't thinking--of _course_ you're
not mad--insane I mean. What an idea! only I am worried about you, you
know that, don't you, dear! _Do_ be sensible, dear. Of course your
brain is not _quite_ normal. It can't be with all that sleep-walking,
can it, and all your abnormally brilliant exams!"

Susan Hetth's disjointed remarks sounded like the clatter of a pair of
runaway mules, while Leonie clasped her hands tight as she sat crouched
on her stool.

"Of course people _will_ talk, you know, dear! They did