“I always keep my engagements,” replied Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “If women did not keep their engagements, what would become of mankind? Ten days ago I wrote on my memorandum calendar for November third, ‘Glen Arden, 9 A.M. train.’ A woman should be as exact as a railroad time-table, whatever the weather. It is the only way to accomplish anything in this world. The 9 A.M. train has arrived, and so have I.” She paused, but no one spoke. It was apparent that she intended to enforce a lesson, and she gave her nieces a moment in which to digest it. In the meantime Victoria returned from her expedition to the kitchen with her aunt’s waterproof, and as she entered the room she glanced hastily about. Victoria, though only fifteen, was keenly sensitive, and it seemed to her that the intellectual atmosphere was surcharged with a high explosive, ready to go off with a loud report should a match be applied to it. She was quite sure that her aunt held the match and had come to Glen Arden this rainy day for the express purpose of striking it. “And now to business,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward—she preferred that the two names should be mentioned in conjunction. “As you may suppose, I had an especial purpose in coming out here to-day. I have come to the conclusion, and I think your guardian will fully agree with me, that you cannot live here any longer.” Yes, it was just as Victoria had suspected. Aunt Sophia had struck her match, and an explosion had promptly followed. “And why not, may I ask?” demanded Honor, sitting upright upon the sofa. “How perfectly absurd!” exclaimed Katherine, with a vehemence that was scarcely respectful. “Oh, Aunt Sophia, you are trying to frighten us!” remarked Victoria, assuming an air of gaiety that appeared forced. “But we don’t want to live anywhere else,” added Sophy, as if that reason were conclusive. Sophy, being only eight, had not yet fully realized the aunt for whom she was named. Mrs. Wentworth Ward looked from one to the other of her four nieces. She appeared to be quite unmoved by their excitement. There can be no surprise for the one who strikes the match on occasions of this kind, and Mrs. Wentworth Ward prided herself always upon being equal to an occasion. “I felt so at the time that your father died,” she continued, “but I said nothing. There was no one who could come here then to live with you, and it was not convenient for me to ask you to live with me; but in the three months which have elapsed since then, I have reached a decision. It is my way, as you know, to think over my plans carefully before making them known to others. I have thought them over, and now I tell you. It is neither seemly nor proper—and there are other reasons, too, which make it impossible—that my nieces and nephew should continue to live here alone. By the way, where is Peter?”