tones.

"How did I know!" exclaimed Auntie; "why I sent them!"

Every hand was against me. The parachute had failed to work and I
was dropping on the rocks.

Faintly and far away I could hear the ambulance coming at a gallop.

Sweet spirits of ammonia, but I was up against it!

It was plainly evident to me that Aunt Martha knew the awful
relatives of Bunch, and that the old lady was camping on my trial.
Yes; there she stood, old Aunt Nemesis, glaring at me from behind
her spectacles.

I decided to die without going over near the piano.

"Where are they?" I could hear Aunt Martha asking in the same tone
of voice I was certain the Roman Emperor used when just about to
frame up a finale for a few Christians from over the Tiber.

"Uncle Peter has gone for them; we put them in the spare room,"
answered Clara J.

"What! _in the spare room_!" gasped Aunt Martha, collapsing in a
chair just as Uncle Peter appeared in the doorway, bowing low
before the visitors, who stalked clumsily into the parlor.

For some reason or other Clara J. omitted the formality of