“Takes us that way—as spinster aunts!”
“Yes. She makes herself as free in this house as she was in her Aunt Ella's at Hampden Falls. She flies up to Cyril's rooms half a dozen times a day with some question about her lessons; and I don't know how long she'd sit at his feet and adoringly listen to his playing if he didn't sometimes get out of patience and tell her to go and practise herself. She makes nothing of tripping into Bertram's studio at all hours of the day; and he's sketched her head at every conceivable angle—which certainly doesn't tend to make Billy modest or retiring. As to you—you know how much she's in your rooms, spending evening after evening fussing over your collections.”
“I know; but we're—we're sorting them and making a catalogue,” defended the man, anxiously. “Besides, I—I like to have her there. She doesn't bother me a bit.”
“No; I know she doesn't,” replied Aunt Hannah, with a curious inflection. “But don't you see, William, that all this isn't going to quite do? Billy's too young—and too old.”
“Come, come, Aunt Hannah, is that exactly logical?”
“It's true, at least.”
“But, after all, where's the harm? Don't you think that you are just a little bit too—fastidious? Billy's nothing but a care-free child.”
“It's the 'free' part that I object to, William. She has taken every one of you into intimate companionship—even Pete and Dong Ling.”
“Pete and Dong Ling!”
“Yes.” Mrs. Stetson's chin came up, and her nostrils dilated a little. “Billy went to Pete the other day to have him button her shirt-waist up in the back; and yesterday I found her down-stairs in the kitchen instructing Dong Ling how to make chocolate fudge!”