She's a long-waisted, rangy young party, who walks with a Theda Bara slouch and tries to talk out of one side of her mouth. "Hello!" she goes on. "The Parker Smith person. That's enough. It's all off." "Just as you say," says I. "But, if you ask me, I wouldn't pass up an aunt like her without takin' a look." "Aunt!" says Claire Lamar, _alias_ Hunt. "Listen: she's about as much an aunt to me as I am to either of you. And I've never shed any tears over the fact, either. The only aunt that I'd ever own was one that my family would never tell me much about. I had to find out about her for myself. Take it from me, though, she was some aunt." "Tastes in aunts differ, I expect," says I. "And Mrs. Parker Smith don't claim to be a reg'lar aunt, anyway. She seems harmless, too. All she wants is a chance to give you a rosy prospectus of life on a cow farm and blow you to a dinner at the Napoleon." "Think of that!" says Claire. "And I've been living for weeks on window-sill meals, with now and then a ptomaine-defying gorge at the Pink Poodle's sixty-cent table d'hote. Oh, I'll come, I'll come! But I warn you: the Parker Smith person will understand before the evening is over that I was born to no cow farm in Illinois." With that she glides off to do a dinner change. "I believe it is going to be quite an interesting party, don't you?" says Vee. "The signs point that way," says I. "But the old girl really ought to wear shock-absorbers if she wants to last through the evenin'. S-s-s-sh! Claire is comin' back." This time she's draped herself in a pale yellow kimono with blue triangles stenciled all over it. "Speaking of perfectly good aunts," says she, "there!" And she displays a silver-framed photo. It's an old-timer done in faded brown, and shows a dashin' young party wearin' funny sleeves, a ringlet cascade on one side of her head, and a saucy little pancake lid over one ear. "That," explains Claire, "was my aunt Clara Lamar; not my real aunt, you know, but near enough for me to claim her. This was taken in '82, I believe." "Really!" says Vee. "She must have been quite pretty."