"I bet he couldn't keep his face straight," Polly vindictively charged.
"You do Mr. Gresham an injustice, Polly," protested Aunt Pattie severely.
"It isn't possible," insisted Polly. "If it were not giving him too much credit for brains I'd swear he'd helped break Johnny."
"I'm afraid you don't give him quite enough credit for brains," said Constance, and giving her roses a deft parting turn she went down-stairs to meet Paul Gresham.
If Aunt Pattie had been pleased by the change in Constance, Gresham was delighted. This was the first time she had really beamed on him since she had met Johnny Gamble.
"You are always charming," he observed, taking pleasure in his own gallantry, "but to-day you seem unusually so."
"That's pretty," dimpled Constance. "I wanted to look nice to-day."
Mr. Gresham's self-esteem arose several degrees. He smiled his thanks of her compliment to the appointment he had made with her.
"My call to-day is rather a formal one," he told her, smiling, and approaching the important subject-matter in hand directly but quite easily, he thought. "It is in relation to the will of your Aunt Gertrude, which has been the cause of some embarrassment to us both, and to you particularly, I fear."
"Naturally," she assented, still smiling, however.