“Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah,” she gurgled. “If Bertram wouldn't call you the limit—making a clock strike eleven so you'll know it's half-past ten!”
Aunt Hannah colored a little, but she stood her ground.
“Well, there's only half an hour, anyway, now, that I don't know what time it is,” she maintained, “for one or the other of those clocks strikes the hour every thirty minutes. Even during those never-ending three ones that strike one after the other in the middle of the night, I can tell now, for the hall clock has a different sound for the half-hours, you know, so I can tell whether it's one or a half-past.”
“Of course,” chuckled Billy.
“I'm sure I think it's a splendid idea,” chimed in Marie, valiantly; “and I'm going to write it to mother's Cousin Jane right away. She's an invalid, and she's always lying awake nights wondering what time it is. The doctor says actually he believes she'd get well if he could find some way of letting her know the time at night, so she'd get some sleep; for she simply can't go to sleep till she knows. She can't bear a light in the room, and it wakes her all up to turn an electric switch, or anything of that kind.”
“Why doesn't she have one of those phosphorous things?” questioned Billy.
Marie laughed quietly.
“She did. I sent her one,—and she stood it just one night.”
“Stood it!”
“Yes. She declared it gave her the creeps, and that she wouldn't have the spooky thing staring at her all night like that. So it's got to be something she can hear, and I'm going to tell her Mrs. Stetson's plan right away.”