"Bright Alfarata. Same one, exactly. Bring up another chair, and we'll go
through a whole programme of classics--pruggrum, I mean."

"Let's see, though," said Jane, looking at her watch. "Mercy me! where
has the morning gone? It's after eleven o'clock."

"Supposing it is after eleven; supposing it was after a hundred and
eleven? You're going to stay to lunch."

"I'd love to so much; but I just can't. I've got too many other scalps to
take. So many thanks for yours! I'm going to work north towards the
Monument--another Massacre!"

"Well, Wednesday, then, without fail."

They retraced their steps past the mournful Miss Peters and through the
vast state bedroom. On the stairs Mrs. Bates said:

"I _do_ remember your aunt, Mrs. Rhodes, now," The conscientious creature
had been taxing her memory for an hour. Jane felt that this was a
tribute, not to her aunt, but to herself.

"Yes," Mrs. Bates went on, "she's a little, plump, dark woman, and when
she sits down she wiggles and flounces and goes all in a heap--like
this." Mrs. Bates illustrated by means of the window-seat on the landing.

"Yes," assented Jane. She could not reproach Mrs. Bates for thus
indulging her sense of humor in order to recoup herself for the tax on
her memory.