"Surely you must answer her letter, dear."
"Must I! 'Must got bust,' they used to say when I was a girl."
"Surely you will answer it?" said Miss Vesta, altering the unlucky form of words.
"Nothing of the sort! She has had the impudence to write to me, and she can answer herself."
"She cannot very well do that, Aunt Marcia."
"Then she can go without.
"'Tiddy hi, toddy ho,
Tiddy hi hum,
Thus was it when Barbara Popkins was young!'"
Miss Vesta sighed again; it was always a bad sign when Mrs. Tree began to sing.
"Very well, Aunt Marcia," she said, after a pause, rising. "I will answer for both, then. I will say that—"
"Say that I am blind, deaf, and dumb!" her aunt commanded. "Say that I have the mumps and the chicken-pox, and am recommended absolute retirement. Say I have my sins to think about, and have no time for anything else. Say anything you like, Vesta, but run along now, like a good girl, and let me get smoothed out before that poor little parson comes to see me. He's coming at five. Last time I scared him out of a year's growth—te-hee!—and he has none to spare, inside or out. Good-by, my dear."