"Oh, yes, she could—you don't know her. But even if she happened to be nice to you, there's Aunt Isobel."
"What is she like?"
"Horribly good and conscientious, and shocked to death at everything people do and say. I don't mean that she isn't awfully kind. She'll do anything for you if you are sick. But Uncle Ranny says her sense of duty amounts to a vice. Whatever she's doing, she thinks she ought to be doing something else. And she expects you to be just as good as she is. If she knew I was out here with a strange man to whom I'd never been introduced——"
Eleanor was appalled at the effect upon her aunt of such indiscretion.
"Oh, I could handle her all right," said Quin boastfully. "I'd talk foreign missions to her. Any others?"
"Heaps. There's Aunt Flo and Uncle Ranny. He's a dear, only he's the black sheep of the family. He says I am a promising gray lamb, which makes grandmother furious. They all let her twist them round her finger but me. I won't twist. I never intend to."
"Is that all the family?"
"No; there's Aunt Enid. She is the nicest of them all."
"What is her line?"
"Oh, she's awfully good, too. But she's different from Aunt Isobel. She was engaged to be married once, and grandmother broke it off because the man was poor. I don't think she'll ever get over it."