"MISS DALE, FOR THE DEAR LOVE O' GOD WILL YOU MAKE HER PUT IT AWAY?"

Dale laughed again. "I really think you'd better, Aunt Cornelia.
Or both of us will have to put Lizzie to bed with a case of acute
hysteria."

"Well," said Miss Van Gorder, "perhaps you're right, dear." Her eyes
gleamed. "I should have liked to try it just once more though," she
confided. "I feel certain that I could hit that tree over there if
my eye wouldn't wink so when the thing goes off."

"Now, it's winking eyes," said Lizzie on a note of tragic chant, "but
next time it'll be bleeding corpses and--"

Dale added her own protestations to Lizzie's. "Please, darling, if
you really want to practice, Billy can fix up some sort of target
range--but I don't want my favorite aunt assassinated by a
ricocheted bullet before my eyes!"

"Well, perhaps it would be best to try again another time," admitted
Miss Van Gorder. But there was a wistful look in her eyes as she
gave the revolver to Dale and the three started back to the house.

"I should never have allowed Lizzie to know what I was doing," she
confided in a whisper, on the way. "A woman is perfectly capable of
managing firearms--but Lizzie is really too nervous to live,
sometimes."

"I know just how you feel, darling," Dale agreed, suppressed mirth