"You should have seen Isobel Westley's face--she was _furious_," Ginny Cox had confided to her. And Jerry would not have been human if she had not felt a momentary thrill of satisfied revenge. The attention of the younger Westleys was centered, during the intervening days, on Aunt Maria's approaching visit. Isobel was much disturbed over the dire hints which Gyp and Graham dropped at different times. One of Graham's friends had a pet snake and Graham had asked to borrow it "just over Wednesday." "It'll strengthen her nerves better'n any old doctor," Graham declared, loftily. "Mother, _do_ you hear them----" appealed Isobel, almost in tears. Isobel had been building for herself a rosy dream; she had even, casually, told a few of the girls at school that "in June I'm going abroad with my godmother, Mrs. Cornelius Drinkwater--you know her mother was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a beautiful chateau near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the time----" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel corridors, to the Opera, to the little French shops, driving beside Aunt Maria through the Bois de Boulogne and walking on the Champs Elysees, admired everywhere, envied, too. And perhaps, through Aunt Maria's relatives (it was very easy in the dark to pretend that there _was_ a Marquis of Balencourt) she might meet a handsome, dashing young Frenchman who would go quite crazy about her, and it would be such fun writing home to the girls---- "Graham," and Mrs. Westley made her voice very stern. "You must not play a single trick on Aunt Maria!" "But, mother, she may stay on and on----" "If you'll be very good," Mrs. Westley blushed a little, for she knew she was "buying" her children, "while Aunt Maria's here I'll take you all to see 'The Land o'Dreams.'" "We promise! We promise!" came in an eager assent. "I'll tell Joe I don't want his snake," said Graham. "I won't laugh all the while she's here," declared Gyp. "We'll be angelic, mother," they chorused, and they really meant it. Aunt Maria's arrival, an hour before dinner, was nothing short of majestic. The taxi-driver (by a slight effort of the imagination easily transformed into a uniformed lackey) unloaded a half-dozen bags and boxes; next there alighted from the taxi a trim little maid in black with a rug over her arm, a hamper in one hand, a square leather box, books and magazines in the other. Then, by degrees, Aunt Maria emerged, first a purple hat, covered with nodding purple plumes, then a very red face, turned haughtily away from the driver, whom she was calling "robber"; yards and yards of purple velvet hung and swished about her, while a wide ermine mantle, set about her shoulders, added the royal touch without which the picture would have been spoiled!