“Well,” said Fanny, “I saw you having a talk with Granny in here this morning. I suppose she has promised I shall go to London and live like other girls. That would be so like her,—such a sweet creature?—”

“Sh—sh—”

“Oh, why not say what you think? I’d like to hear your real opinion of her—after all these years.”

“She is my mother; and she was angelic to me this morning.”

Fanny stared, then burst into laughter. “Angelic! How I should like to have seen Granny do it. Did you ask her if I could go to the party at Bath House?”

“She is opposed to it,” said Julia, evasively, “but I think I can talk her over. One would never expect to get the best of mother in the first round. I must tell you, however, that I shall not go to Bath House myself?—”

“Oh, that Mr. Tay! Only it is romantic, and he is handsome, and quite nice. Do tell me, Julia,” she asked eagerly, “what is it like to be in love with a real man?”

“Put such thoughts out of your head for the present.”

“Did he ever kiss you?”

“Have you looked over my evening gowns? Collins is quite excited at the prospect of fussing with them.”

“How heavenly! I’ll go this minute! What on earth is the matter with Denny? He looks as if he’d just heard the guns at the fort announcing a hurricane.”

The old man almost staggered in. His expression was quite wild.

“Lor’s sake, Missy,” he gasped. “A visitor! A man!”

Fanny snatched the card.

“Julia!” she cried, more excited than Denny. “It’s he! It’s Mr. Tay!”

Julia turned her face away and walked with great dignity to the opposite door. “Tell him that he must excuse me,” she said over her shoulder.

“He ask for Mis’ Winstone, Mis’ Julia.”

“For whom?”

“He say she ask him for tea.”

“She must be quite mad. Well, go and find her.” And she hastened to her room, determined to punish Tay for coming, but not so sure she should not waylay him in the garden when he left.

“Denny,” said Fanny, “ask him to come in here. And you need not disturb my aunt at present. She is taking her nap.”

“Yes, Missy.” And Denny went off, shaking his head.

Fanny ran over to a glass and smoothed her hair, put a flower in it, and made an attempt to stiffen her figure until it looked as if incased in stays. But when Tay entered she immediately became as natural as the young female ever is in the presence of the young and marriageable male. Tay did not look in the best of tempers, but she thought him quite handsome enough to be the hero of a romance.

“Do sit down,” she said hospitably. “Aunt Maria will be in presently. Oh, do tell me how you got in. I mean, what can Aunt Maria have told Granny— Or hasn’t she told her? Perhaps I’d better take you out for a walk. Granny might be too horrid.”

“I fancy Mrs. Winstone has told your grandmother that she asked me for tea,” said Tay, with a slight access of color.

“But what?”

“Oh— Are not you too afraid of this—of your formidable grandmother?”

“Not a bit. I only pretend to be for the sake of peace. But, oh, do tell me how Aunt Maria had the courage to ask you here! I’m simply mad with curiosity. A young man in this house!”

Tay drew a long breath. This was an explanation he had not bargained for, and those immense eyes were disconcertingly young, and very handsome. “Well, you see—this is how it is: I came here, neglected business and a good many other things, to see Julia France, and I have no idea of wasting my time. I don’t like underhand methods. I’d rather fight in the open any time, but with women you almost never can. So let us call this strategy?—”

“Yes! Yes!” cried Fanny. “But for heaven’s sake, what is it?”

“We had a conference last night at the hotel.” Tay got up and walked about the room.

“Oh, do go on.”

“Well, briefly, we hatched a plot. Mrs. Winstone was to be induced to tell your grandmother that she and I are engaged?—”

“What?”

“Ah—yes.”

“You and Aunt Maria!” She succeeded in taking it in, then went off into shrieks of laughter. Tay swore under his breath, and looked out of the window.

“You and Aunt Maria! I never heard of anything so funny in all my life. Why on earth didn’t you pretend to have fallen in love with me? That would have fooled everybody, and I should have loved to take you out for long walks—and turn you over to Julia!”

“You forget that a man doesn’t care to place a girl in a false position?—”

“But Aunt Maria never can have made Granny believe?—”

“Why not? Half the women in London have admirers young enough to be their sons, and sometimes they marry them. Your aunt could have one of those brats dangling if she chose. It’s not my r?le, but I can play it at a pinch.” He returned to his chair. “Do you think I can see Julia to-day?”

“She ran away when she heard you were here.”

“Oh, did she?”

“I don’t think she means to see you. That would be horrid of her. But you come here every day—to see Aunt Maria!—and I’ll manage it. And if you always come when Granny’s asleep, you can talk to me.”

“That would be ample compensation,” said Tay, mechanically. He was feeling very cross, and it was long since callow girlhood had appealed to him. Still, this child was beautiful, and beauty exacts tribute at any age. He told himself that he was a surly brute, and exerted himself to be agreeable.

“You must find this a lonely life,” he observed. “What do you do with yourself? Read novels? Go over to parties on St. Kitts?”

“Novels! Parties! I’ve read about ten, and I’ve never been to a party in my life. You are the first young man I’ve ever talked to.”

“Really?” Tay was mildly interested. “What a life for a young girl. I’ve never seen any one look less like a hermit. What do you do with yourself?”

“Oh, Granny put me in charge of the estate a year ago. She’s too old to go out much, and she drilled me until I thought I’d go off my head. But now I rather like it. There’s something to do, anyhow, riding over the estate every morning, keeping the mill overseer from cheating, and getting work out of lazy blacks. I can do that, and in a way it’s like having a little kingdom all your own. I’ve made them all afraid of me.”

“Have you? By George, you are some girl! I thought you were merely out for fun. I’d be put to it to find another girl of your age—and—and—general style—who was running an estate. It seems to be a remarkable family, altogether.”

Fanny saw that she had now really caught his attention, and found him more attractive every moment. The subject of her prosaic duties had never entered her imaginary conversations with young men, but this one was quite different himself from any of her dreams; and she suddenly found reality far more attractive than romance. She was also quick to take a cue, and was about to launch upon a description of plantation life in the West Indies, when Denny came running in, this time looking fairly distracted.

“Lots of visitors, Missy!”

“I should have told you that Mrs. Winstone asked the rest of our party,” said Tay.

Fanny forgot him in her fright, as Mrs. Macmanus, Mr. Pirie, and the Morisons entered. But her instincts asserted themselves, and she went through the ordeal very creditably.

“Why, how do you do?” she said hospitably. “I’m so glad to see you all in our house. Please sit down. Denny, go and tell Mrs. Winstone. Ah—won’t you take off your hats?”

“No, thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Morison, whose eyes were brimming with mischief. “Mine is so becoming. Besides, a lot of hair would come off, too.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Macmanus, “and thank you for asking me. Reminds me of my youth.” And she removed her bonnet and rolled up the strings. “Even one’s hair is too warm for the tropics. Pirie, you might take off your toupee. I’ve seen you do it twice when you thought no one was looking!”

“Really, Hannah!” Pirie almost exploded. What an assault in the presence of glorious eighteen!

But Fanny was paying no attention to Pirie. She was gazing in rapt admiration at Mrs. Morison’s airy toilette of daffodil yellow, with a large chiffon hat of the same shade, covered with more little soft feathers than she had ever seen before, and a perfectly useless, but all the more enviable, sunshade of chiffon and lace.

Mrs. Morison saw the admiration in the girl’s eyes, and no admiration was thrown away on her. She smiled brilliantly.

“How simply enchanting to see the inside of an old West Indian home,” she exclaimed. “I never had any old-fashioned things in my life. Grandpa emigrated to California in the fifties, and every house he built burned down whenever the city did. So when I came along and pa was making his pile, there wasn’t so much as a daguerrotype in the family. We were just upholstered from New York and dressed from Paris. How’s that for family history, Miss Edis?”

“Oh,” said Fanny, through her teeth, “how I should like to live in a country where there were no ancestors. There’s nothing else here.”

Morison was also beaming upon her. “You must come and visit us in New York,” he said. “We’re imitating England and becoming too democratic to talk about ancestors, even when we’ve got ’em, and we usually haven’t.”

“Why, Nolly,” cried Emily, who was Californian when she wanted to be audacious, but valued her New York to its ultimate vanishing drop of azure blood, “you know your mother was a?—”

“Pauper. She hooked my father, which is more to the point, and I’m in the race for Millionaire Street, which is the whole point.”

“Oh, you little bleating Wall Street Calf! Such a little one, too, Miss Edis.”

“I might be a bigger one if you spent less. What are we here for, anyhow?” he asked, as Fanny, apprehending a domestic scene, moved away. “Dan can take care of his own affairs, and I feel as if I were on a ship in midocean with the wireless out of order.”

“What man ever could manage his own affairs? It would have been cruel to let Dan come alone, and I know I can help him out. We mustn’t scrap and frighten Mrs. France, or she’ll think the temper is in the Tay family, whereas it’s always your fault?—”

But she laughed good-naturedly, extracting the sting, and Morison, who never quite understood her, was mollified and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m going to flirt with that little West Indian girl who doesn’t know the first thi............