My child," I said, "why _should_ I be angry? You may confide in me
implicitly." (With a blush like that, who on earth could be angry
with her?)

"And you won't tell Aunt Amelia or Aunt Isabel?" she inquired
somewhat anxiously.

"Not for worlds," I answered. (As a matter of fact, Amelia and
Isabel are the last people in the world to whom I should dream
of confiding anything that Dolly might tell me.)

"Well, I was stopping at Seldon, you know, when Mr. David Granton
was there," Dolly went on; "--or, rather, when that scamp pretended
he was David Granton; and--and--you won't be angry with me, will
you?--one day I took a snap-shot with my kodak at him and Aunt
Amelia!"

"Why, what harm was there in that?" I asked, bewildered. The wildest
stretch of fancy could hardly conceive that the Honourable David had
been _flirting_ with Amelia.

Dolly coloured still more deeply. "Oh, you know Bertie Winslow?" she
said. "Well, he's interested in photography--and--and also in _me_.
And he's invented a process, which isn't of the slightest practical
use, he says; but its peculiarity is, that it reveals textures. At
least, that's what Bertie calls it. It makes things come out so. And
he gave me some plates of his own for my kodak--half-a-dozen or more,
and--I took Aunt Amelia with them."

"I still fail to see," I murmured, looking at her comically.

"Oh, Uncle Seymour," Dolly cried. "How blind you men are!
If Aunt Amelia knew she would never forgive me. Why, you _must_
understand. The--the rouge, you know, and the pearl powder!"

"Oh, it comes out, then, in the photograph?" I inquired.

"Comes out! I should _think_ so! It's like little black spots all
over auntie's face. _such_ a guy as she looks in it!"

"And Colonel Clay is in them too?"

"Yes; I took them when he and auntie were talking together, without
either of them noticing. And Bertie developed them. I've three of
David Granton. Three beauties; _most_ successful."

"Any other character?" I asked, seeing business ahead.

Dolly hung back, still redder. "Well, the rest are with Aunt
Isabel," she answered, after a struggle.

"My dear child," I replied, hiding my feelings as a husband, "I will
be brave. I will bear up even against that last misfortune!"

Dolly looked up at me pleadingly. "It was here in London," she went
on; "--when I was last with auntie. Medhurst was stopping in the
house at the time; and I took him twice, tete-a-tete with Aunt
Isabel!"

"Isabe