"He can't see that the paper is peeling off the wall," Agatha continued ecstatically. "But he'll appreciate the rooms being large and airy. He won't worry because the house needs painting, but he can enjoy sitting under the shade of the trees. I can even feed him fried chicken while the rest of us are eating cod-fish gravy. It's an interposition of Providence."
Miss Finch was hectoring her nose again. "But how are you going to manage—"
"He wants a boy as an attendant," persisted Agatha jubilantly. "Howard is the boy. He'll pay him well, and pay me for his board. If only I'm not delirious. Oh, I want to jump and scream. Howard's next year in school is all provided for. And if Mr. What's-his-name would only stay blind till—"
"I guess you're forgetting one thing." Miss Finch raised her voice challengingly. "You ain't your great-aunt."
Agatha regarded the interruption with irritation. "Well!"
"It's her he wants to board with. He imagines she's a nice, motherly old soul, who'll pet him up and feed him up. It ain't likely he'd think of engaging board with a flighty young girl. I don't say you're not as competent as though you were sixty. But he wouldn't believe it."
The glow illuminating the girl's face flickered defiantly under this chilling blast of common sense, and went out, like a candle in the wind. She drew her arched brows into a meditative pucker and sat musing while Miss Finch, humanly complacent over having suggested a difficulty, gave her whole attention to her darning, leaving Agatha to wrestle with the solution.
"Fritz," the girl breathed at last, "do you believe in reincarnation?"
Miss Finch tried to look as if she understood the meaning of the word. With an adroitness for which few would have given her credit, she replied, "I won't say I do, and I won't say I don't."
"Well, it's true, Fritz. I am my own great-aunt."