severe than she intended.

"Well," she accused, "didn't he capture yours, Aunt Isabel?"

Then Aunt Isabel, still laughing a little, but with a serious shade
creeping into her eyes, reached out for one of Missy's hands and
smoothed it gently between her own.

"No, dear; I'm afraid your Uncle Charlie has that too securely
tucked away."

Something in Aunt Isabel's voice, her manner, her eyes, even more
than her words, convinced Missy that she was speaking the real
truth. It was all a kind of wild jumbled day-dream she'd been
having. La Beale Aunt Isabel wasn't in love with Mr. Saunders after
all! She was in love with Uncle Charlie. There had been no romantic
undermeaning in all that harp-ukelele business, in the flasket of
ice-cream soda, in the mysterious sickness. The sickness wasn't even
mysterious any longer. Aunt Isabel had only had an "upset."

Deeply stirred, Missy withdrew her hand.

"I think I forgot to open my bed to air," she said, and hurried away
to her own room. But, oblivious of the bed, she stood for a long
time at the window, staring out at nothing.

Yes; Romance had died out in the Middle Ages. . .

She was still standing there when the maid called her to the
telephone. It was Raleigh Peters on the wire, asking to take her to