"Lottie! Is that you?"
Lottie groped in the darkness for the bed and that shrill whisper. "Yes. I—I couldn't sleep.——"
"I should think not. Come here to Auntie." That was what she had always said in the first years, long ago, when Lottie and Belle were children, afraid or hurt. "Come here to Auntie." Her hand was on Lottie's shoulder, warm and comforting. "Child alive, you haven't got a thing around you! Here, get the silk quilt. It's over the foot of the bed. I didn't put it away."
"I've got it." Lottie hunched it gratefully about her chilly shoulders. They were talking in guilty whispers. Lottie huddled at the side of the bed. "I can't go, Aunt Charlotte. I can't go."
"Fiddlesticks! That's the middle of the night talking. Wait till you've had a cup of coffee at eight to-morow morning and see how you feel about going."
Lottie knew she was right. Yet she must justify her own terror. "It isn't fair to Jeannette. I've been thinking of her."
Great-aunt Charlotte snickered a little. "Never you mind about Jeannette."
"But I do. I brought her here. I'm responsible——"
"Listen to me, Lottie. I went up to Jeannette's room a few nights ago to bring her that little brooch I gave her. The garnet one. She was standing in front of the mirror in her nightgown—don't say a word to your ma—you know how Jeannette always brushes her hair and leaves it loose when she goes to bed? Well, there she was, doing it different ways to see which was most becoming in bed. I saw her. And tying it with a big pink bow." She snickered again, wickedly.
"Why Aunt Charlotte Thrift?"