The inevitable, in this particular instance, was Aunt Julia. After the vociferous, verbose, and vortiginous departure of Birdie Miriam and the convalescent brat, dread symptoms of _cynanche parotidaea_ appeared in Letitia, herself; we were alone, helpless, and mump-ridden, and it was Letitia who suggested Aunt Julia. I made few telephonic explanations to Tarrytown. I merely begged my aunt-in-law to put a few things in a valise and come to us at once, as her niece was quite ill. This was true. By the time Aunt Julia arrived, Letitia's fair face had lost its outlines. In the grip of this most prosaic indisposition she was inclined to be irritable--particularly when she looked at herself in the glass, which she did every five minutes. Some patients, it is said, are amused at the facial contortions guaranteed by this ailment. They must be the patients who own a sense of humor. Letitia was awed by her own ugliness, and I must confess that I hated to look at her. She insisted upon wearing a lace mantilla over her head, and fastening it with a diamond brooch beneath her chin. Under other circumstances this might have seemed Spanish, but Letitia was cross, and when I dared to suggest that she was emulating Otero, she was most indignant, and thought my remark uncalled for. Aunt Julia's advent was very welcome. After all, she had fine qualities. There was not a suspicion of the baleful "I told you so" in her manner. She _did_ turn away her head several times, as Letitia narrated the tragic stories of Anna Carter, _La_ Potzenheimer, and Birdie Miriam, but although I had a suspicion that she was exuding mirth, I could not prove it. I could not have sworn that Aunt Julia was laughing, although I followed her face round the corner, so to speak. Mercifully, Letitia was unable to do this, owing to circumstances--to say nothing of swellings--over which she had no control. My poor Letitia! If irritability were a good sign--as old women declare--her convalescence soon set in. She was as "cross as two sticks," as my old nurse used to remark. The worst of it was that I had to absent myself from the office until Aunt Julia arrived. I told Tamworth that my wife had tonsilitis, as I thought it sounded better and would be more evocative of sympathy. People are sorry when you say tonsilitis; they are merely amused when you mention mumps. A heroine with mumps, or even toothache, is a romantic impossibility; but tonsilitis or nervous prostration is less destructive to poetic commiseration. "You have probably arrived at a conclusion often forced upon me," said Aunt Julia, as her keen, beady eyes roved around the room. "The happiest day after that upon which cook arrives is that upon which cook departs." If _I_ had dared to say that, Letitia would have exclaimed ironically, "How clever!" or, "How epigrammatic!" and I should have been instantly snubbed. As it was, she murmured a dutiful "Yes, aunt," and sat with her hands folded in her lap, meekness personified.