conjuring trick in the hall, and taking cucumbers and tomatoes from
unexpected points of his person. "All out o' MY little bit," he'd say
in exemplary tones. He left a trail of vegetable produce in the most
unusual places, on mantel boards, sideboards, the tops of pictures.
Heavens! how the sudden unexpected tomato could annoy me!...

It did much to widen our estrangement that Marion and my aunt failed to
make friends, became, by a sort of instinct, antagonistic.

My aunt, to begin with, called rather frequently, for she was really
anxious to know Marion. At first she would arrive like a whirlwind and
pervade the house with an atmosphere of hello! She dressed already with
that cheerfully extravagant abandon that signalised her accession to
fortune, and dressed her best for these visits.

She wanted to play the mother to me, I fancy, to tell Marion occult
secrets about the way I wore out my boots and how I never could think to
put on thicker things in cold weather. But Marion received her with
that defensive suspiciousness of the shy person, thinking only of the
possible criticism of herself; and my aunt, perceiving this, became
nervous and slangy...

"She says such queer things," said Marion once, discussing her. "But I
suppose it's witty."

"Yes," I said; "it IS witty."

"If I said things like she does--"

The queer things my aunt said were nothing to the queer things she