I was amused. “What would you have me do?” I asked. “Rise and sing the 'Star Spangled Banner'?”
“I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a—like a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was one.”
It was quite evident that “my niece” was a young person of whims. The next time the “States” were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their defence, she calmly espoused the other side and “ragged” as mercilessly as the rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state of affairs had one good effect at least—that of waking me up.
Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as “Auntie.” And she would not permit “Auntie” to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy were becoming really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like her—to discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I expressed this thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
“Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy,” she said, “but only this mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked like her, she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture right in the middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she was at first because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets who and what we are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods, livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different. You can't blame her for that, I suppose. But—but how is it all goin' to end? I don't know.”
I didn't know either.
“I had hoped,” I said, “that, living with us as she does, she might come to know and understand us—to learn that we couldn't be the sort she has believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would listen to reason.”
“I—I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing, Hosy. She needs clothes and—and lots of things. She realizes it. Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She asked me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by herself.”
“Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so far as I know.”
“You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send us the bills.”