We are not his aunts, but he so designates us. I regret to say that by “the old girl” he referred to his Aunt Letitia. “Since the war,” I said with dignity, “your Aunt Letitia has greatly changed, Charlie. We have both noticed it. The great drama is over, and she is now content to live on her memories.” I regret to say that he here exclaimed, “Like ---- she is! I’ll bet you a dollar and a quarter she’s up to something right now.” Aggie gave a little moan. “You have no basis for such a statement,” I said sternly. But he only took another wafer and more of our cordial. He was preventing a cold. “All right,” he said. “But I’ve had considerable experience, and she’s too quiet. Besides, she asked me the other day if doubtful methods were justifiable to attain a righteous end!” “What did you tell her?” Aggie inquired anxiously. “I said they were not; but she didn’t seem to believe me. Now mark my words: After every spell of quiet she has she goes out and gets in the papers. So don’t say I haven’t warned you.” But he had no real basis for his unjust suspicions, and after eating all the nut wafers in the house he went away. “Just one thing,” he said: “I was around there yesterday, and her place looked queer to me. I missed a lot of little things she used to have. You don’t suppose she’s selling them, do you?” Well, Tish has plenty of money and that seemed unlikely. But Aggie and I went around that evening, and it was certainly true. Her Cousin Mary Evans’ blue vases were gone from the mantel of the living room, and her Grandaunt Priscilla’s portrait was missing from over the fireplace. The china clock with wild roses on it that Aggie had painted herself had disappeared, and Tish herself had another attack of neuritis and had her right arm hung in a sling. She was very noncommital when I commented on the bareness of the room. “I’m sick of being cluttered up with truck,” she said. “We surround our bodies with too many things, and cramp them. The human body is divine and beautiful, but we surround it with--er--china clocks and what not, and it deteriorates.” “Surround it with clothes, Tish,” I suggested, but she waved me off. “_Mens sana in corpore sano_,” she said. She had wrenched her left knee, too, it appeared, and so Hannah let us out. She went into the outside corridor with us and closed the door behind her. “What did she say about her right arm and her left leg?” she inquired. When we told her she merely sniffed. “I’ll bet she said she was sick of her aunt’s picture and that clock, too,” she said. “Well, she’s lying, that’s all.” “Hannah!” “I call it that. She’s smashed them, and she’s smashed her Grandfather Benton and the cut-glass salad bowl, and a window. And the folks below are talking something awful.” “Hannah! What do you mean?”