"Indeed! Has she kept those peaches-and-cream checks?"

"Ah, you must wait and see," and Jane nodded mysteriously.

"But I--" protested Decatur.

"Oh, it will be only for a day or so. Rose-colds are so hard on the
eyes, you know. In the mean time perhaps you will tell us how you
happened to develop into a famous author. We are immensely proud of you,
of course. Aunt Judith goes hardly anywhere without a copy of _The
Insurgent_ in her hand. If the persons she meets have not read it, she
scolds them good. And you must hear Mabel render that chapter in which
Sunday runs away from the man she loves with the man she doesn't."

There they were, back to Mabel again.

"But what about yourself, Jane?" suggested Decatur.

"About me! Why, I only--Oh, here is Aunt Judith."

Yes, there was no mistaking her, nor overlooking her. She was just as
colossally commanding as ever, just as imperious. At sight of her,
Decatur understood Jane's position clearly. She was still the dependent
niece, the obscure satellite of a star of the first magnitude. Very
distinctly had Mrs. Philo Allen once explained to him this dependence of
Jane's, incidentally touching on his own unlikely prospects. That had
been just before she had swept Jane off to Europe with her.

All this Aunt Judith now seemed to have forgotten. In her own imperial