"Yes. Aunt Cecilia is a Devonshire woman, and can put a wish upon any one she's vexed with. She leaves the most valuable things about; but though at one time she was always changing her parlour-maids, no one has ever dared to steal anything from her private sitting-room up-stairs. You'll understand why when you've once been inside it."
Clare's white face grew, if possible, a shade whiter as she spoke, lowering her voice to a very subdued key.
"Are you afraid of your aunt too?" Laline asked.
Clare shivered and glanced towards the door.
"Horribly!" she replied, in a very low voice. Then she gave a little nervous laugh. "It sounds absurd to you, doesn't it? But Aunt Cecilia is a wonderful woman! I am an orphan, and she was my mother's younger sister. My mother often told me how Cissy used to terrify her as a child by prophesying things. Well, she has cultivated her powers in that direction until she almost forgets she has a body at all; she is all mind and spirit and that sort of thing, you know! Won't you have some more apple-pie? Aunt Cissy's cook makes such capital pastry, it's a pity to neglect it! As I was saying, my aunt, who isn't forty yet, in spite of her powdered hair, went in for spiritualism and all that sort of thing quite early. She was the seventh child of a Scotchwoman and a Devonshire man, and both my grandparents were dreadfully superstitious. Aunt Cissy was very pretty, my mother told me, in a sort of ethereal way—a figure like yours, I should say, only not so tall and a little thinner—you are so charmingly slender that I feel a great fat thing beside you!"
"I think you have a beautiful figure!" said Laline, simply.
"Oh, it's very sweet of you; but there are too many curves about me! I know I must appear very plump and earthly in Aunt Cissy's eyes. Men like curves, I know; but then I don't care about pleasing men a little bit—they simply bore me when they try to make love to me! Do you feel the same about them?"
"I don't know. No man has ever tried to make love to me."
And then Laline, although she had answered with perfect truthfulness, suddenly blushed, remembering that she was actually a married woman. Clare noted the blush and decided that her new friend was lying.