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