"Listen!" says I. "Hear your Aunty usin' her comp'ny voice. My! ain't she the gentle, cooin' dove, though? Now they're gettin' acquainted. So this was where Uncle Kyrle spoke of callin'! Hot time he picked out for it, didn't he, with me here in the condemned cell? Say, what do you know about that, eh?" Vee smothers another giggle, and slips one of her hands into mine. "Don't you care!" says she, whisperin'. "And isn't it thrilling? But what shall we do?" "It's by me," says I. "Aunty told me to wait, didn't she? Well, let's." Which we done, sittin' there sociable, and every now and then swappin' smiles as the conversation in the next room took a new turn. Fin'lly Uncle Kyrle remarks: "You had your little niece with you then, didn't you?" "Little Verona? Oh, yes," says Aunty. "She is still with me. Rather grown up now, though. I must send for her. Pardon me." And she rings for Selma. Well, that queers the game entirely. Two minutes more, and Vee has been towed in for inspection and I'm left alone in banishment. "Well, well!" I can hear Uncle Kyrle sing out. "Why, young lady, what right had you to change from a tow-headed schoolgirl into such a--Zenobia, please face the other way and don't listen, while I try to tell this radiant young person how utterly charming she has become. No, I can't begin to do the subject justice. Twenty or thirty years ago I might have had some success. Ah, me! Those gray eyes of yours, my dear, hold mischief enough to wreck a convention of saints. Ah, blushing, are you? Forgive me. I ought to know better. Let me tell you, though, I've a young nephew with a pair of blue eyes that might be a match for your gray ones. You must allow me to bring him up some day." And I'd like to have had a glimpse of Vee's face just then. About there, though, Aunty breaks in. "A nephew, Mr. Ballard?" says she. "Poor Dick's boy," says he. "The one we hunted all over the States for after Dick took him on that wild goose chase from which he never came back. Let's see, you must have known the youngster's mother,--Irene Ballard." "That stunning young woman with the copper-red hair whom you introduced at Palermo?" asks Aunty. "Is--is she----" "No," says Uncle Kyrle. "Poor Irene! She was always doing something for someone, you know, and when this big war got under way--well, she went to the front at the first call from the Red Cross. I might have known she would. I suppose she simply couldn't bear to keep out of it--all that suffering, and so much help needed. No more skillful or efficient hands than hers, I'll wager, Madam, were ever volunteered, nor any braver soul. She was pure gold, Irene." "And," puts in Aunty, "she was--er----"