"I don't at all, auntie," denied the girl, flushing with annoyance, "but when you ate those dates at Mrs. Graham's the other day, you enjoyed them so much I thought I'd make some. She gave me her recipe, and I think they're very nice." "I do, too," agreed Mrs. Bowen, eating a date appreciatively, and feeling sorry for Iris' discomfiture. For though many girls might not mind such disapproval, Iris was of a sensitive nature, and cringed beneath her aunt's sharp words. In an endeavor to cover her embarrassment, she picked up a date from her own portion and bit off the end. From the fruit spurted a stream of jet black ink, which stained Iris' lips, offended her palate, and spilling on her pretty white frock, utterly ruined the dainty chiffon and lace. She comprehended instantly. Her aunt, to annoy her, had managed to conceal ink in one of the dates, and place it where Iris would naturally pick it up first. With an angry exclamation the girl left the table and ran upstairs. CHAPTER II THE LOCKED ROOM Ursula Pell leaned back in her chair and shrieked with laughter. "She _will_ have stuffed dates and fancy fixin's, will she?" she cried; "I just guess she's had enough of those fallals now!" "It quite spoiled her pretty frock," said Mrs. Bowen, timidly remonstrant. "That's nothing, I'll buy her another. Oh, I did that pretty cleverly, I can tell you! I took a little capsule, a long, thin one, and I filled it with ink, just as you'd fill a fountain pen. Oh, oh! Iris _was_ so mad! She never suspected at all; and she bit into that date--oh! oh! wasn't it funny!" "I don't think it was," began Mrs. Bowen, but her husband lifted his eyebrows at her, and she said no more. Though a clergyman, Alexander Bowen was not above mercenary impulses, and the mere reference, whether it had been meant or not, to a jeweled chalice made him unwilling to disapprove of anything such an influential hostess might do or say. "Iris owes so much to her aunt," the rector said smilingly, "of course she takes such little jests in good part." "She'd better," and Ursula Pell nodded her head; "if she knows which side her bread is buttered, she'll kiss the hand that strikes her." "If it doesn't strike too hard," put in Mrs. Bowen, unable to resist some slight comment. But again her husband frowned at her to keep silent, and the subject was dropped. It was fully a quarter of an hour before Iris returned, her face red from scrubbing and still showing dark traces of the ink on chin and cheek. She wore a plain little frock of white dimity, and smiled as she resumed her seat at the table. "Now, Aunt Ursula," she said, "if you've any more ink to spill, spill it on this dress, and not on one of my best ones." "Fiddlestrings, Iris, I'll give you a new dress--I'll give you two. It was well worth it, to see you bite into that date! My! you looked so funny! And you look funny yet! There's ink marks all over your face!"