Dale couldn’t help laughing—and the longer she looked at her aunt the more she laughed—until that dignified lady joined in the mirth herself.
“Aunt Cornelia—Aunt Cornelia!” said Dale when she could get her breath. “That I’ve lived to see the day—and they call US the wild generation! Why on earth were you having pistol practice, darling—has Billy turned into a Japanese spy or what?”
Miss Van Gorder rose from the ground with as much stateliness as she could muster under the circumstances.
“No, my dear—but there’s no fool like an old fool—that’s all,” she stated. “I’ve wanted to fire that infernal revolver off ever since I bought it two years ago, and now I have and I’m satisfied. Still,” she went on thoughtfully, picking up the weapon, “it seems a very good revolver—and shooting people must be much easier than I supposed. All you have to do is to point the—the front of it—like this and—”
“Oh, Miss Dale, dear Miss Dale!” came in woebegone accents from the other side of the tree. “For the love of heaven, Miss Dale, say no more but take it away from her—she’ll have herself all riddled through with bullets like a kitchen sieve—and me too—if she’s let to have it again.”
“Lizzie, I’m ashamed of you!” said Lizzie’s mistress. “Come out from behind that tree and stop wailing like a siren. This weapon is perfectly safe in competent hands and—” She seemed on the verge of another demonstration of its powers.
“Miss Dale, for the dear love o’ God will yuo make her put it away?”
Dale laughed again. “I really think you’d better, Aunt Cornelia. Or both of us will have to put Lizzie to bed with a case of acute hysteria.”
“Well,” said Miss Van Gorder, “perhaps you’re right, dear.” Her eyes gleamed. “I should have liked to try it just once more though,” she confided. “I feel certain that I could hit that tree over there if my eye wouldn’t wink so when the thing goes off.”
“Now, it’s winking eyes,” said Lizzie on a note of tragic chant, “but next time it’ll be bleeding corpses and—”