"No," returned her niece, rather sorrowfully. "I didn't. I wish I had."
"Lynn!"
"I don't often neglect anything calculated to render me unpopular with him," continued Miss Thayer, composedly, "and when I do I'm always sorry for it, afterwards. You know that, Aunt Lucy?"
"Lynn, dear, don't use all those long words," adjured her aunt, piteously. "They do sound so clever. And men do so hate clever women. I don't mean that you are clever, you understand, dear," she continued, apologetically, "only that you appear so, sometimes."
"I wonder whether Mr. Lighton would dislike it if he thought I were clever!" queried Lynn with sudden interest.
"I don't know. I am afraid—"
"How I would scintillate if I only thought it would annoy him," Lynn said in a low voice.
Mrs. Thayer started, indignantly.
"I am thankful," she reflected in loud and severe accents, "that I was never afflicted with a desire to make myself unpleasant to estimable young men."
"Estimable! Aunt Lucy!"