"My dear Sharlee! I'm so glad to see you."

They kissed tenderly.

"Oh, Aunt Jennie, tell me! Is he--this man you telephoned me about--is
he a little, small, dried young man, with spectacles and a brown derby,
and needing a hair-cut, and the gravest, drollest manner in the world?
Tell me--is he?"

"My dear, you have described him to the life. Where did you see him?"

Sharlee collapsed upon the bed. Presently she revived and outlined the
situation to Aunt Jennie.

Mrs. Paynter listened with some interest. If humor is a defect, as they
tell us nowadays, she was almost a faultless woman. And in her day she
had been a beauty and a toast. You hear it said generously of a
thousand, but it happened to be true in her case. The high-bred
regularity of feature still survived, but she had let herself go in
latter years, as most women will who have other things than themselves
to think about, and hard things at that. Her old black dress was
carelessly put on; she could look at herself in the mirror by merely
leaning forward an inch or two, and it never occurred to her to do
it--an uncanny thing in a woman.

"I'm sure it sounds quite like him," said Mrs. Paynter, when her niece
had finished. "And so Gardiner West walked around with you. I hope, my
dear, you asked him in to supper? We have an exceptionally nice
Porterhouse steak to-night. But I suppose he would scorn--"