“It depends upon your theory of life.”
“It doesn’t seem normal, somehow,” she answered with a little sigh.
“Why, Aunty,” exclaimed the girl, “what has come over you? You know Daddy often asks me to play for him.”
“But at this time of day! It’s sort of creepy.”
“You’ve sat too long in the dark,” the girl declared, “I’ll have a candle brought unless you wish to join us.”
“Oh, dear no. I couldn’t stand it. He always insists upon the dark and it is quite too—funereal.”
“You mustn’t get morbid, Aunty.”
Miss Van Patten stooped and kissed the cameo forehead and then rose and smoothed back the silken gray hair a moment.
“It isn’t that. It is—”
Aunt Philomela did not finish. Whatever it was, Barnes found himself feeling uncomfortable for a moment. He knew that the old have certain senses which mercifully are denied the young.