"Bless your heart, Aunt Agatha, no!" laughed Diane radiantly. "I'm
going to take old Johnny Jutes with me!"

Diane kissed her aunt lightly on the forehead.

"Well," said Aunt Agatha in melancholy resignation, "if you must turn
gypsy, my dear, and wander about the country, Johnny Jutes is the best
one to go along. He's old and faithful and used to your whims and
surely after thirty years of service, he won't break into tantrums."

Silver-sweet through the quiet house came the careless ripple of a
flute, showering light and sensuous music. There was a dare-devil lilt
and sway to the flippant strains and Aunt Agatha covered her face with
her hands.

"Oh, Diane," she whispered, shuddering, "when he plays like that he
drinks and drinks and drinks until morning."

"Poor Aunt Agatha!" said the girl pityingly. "What troublesome folk we
Westfalls are! And I no less than Carl."

"No, no, my dear!" murmured Aunt Agatha. "It's only when Carl plays
like that--that I grow afraid."

Aunt Agatha went to bed to listen tremblingly while the dare-devil
dance of the flute tripped ghostlike through the corridors. And
falling asleep with the laughing demon of wind and melody cascading
wildly through the mad scene from Lucia, she dreamt that Carl had
captured an Esquimau with his flute and weaving a suit of basket armor