“I rather fancy,” she said, slyly, “that the story will turn out to be the best of the whole series.”
“Wrong again,” I retorted. “I have a plan for letting chance decide which of the stories the first one shall be. They shall be all numbered as they are done; corresponding numbers shall be written inside folded pieces of card and well mixed together; you shall pick out any one card you like; you shall declare the number written within; and, good or bad, the story that answers to that number shall be the story that is read. Is that fair?”
“Fair!” she exclaimed; “it’s better than fair; it makes me of some importance; and I must be more or less than woman not to appreciate that.”
“Then you consent to wait patiently for the next five days?”
“As patiently as I can.”
“And you engage to decide nothing about writing to your aunt until you have heard the first story?”
“I do,” she said, returning to the writing-table. “Behold the proof of it.” She raised her hand with theatrical solemnity, and closed the paper-case with an impressive bang.
I leaned back in my chair with my mind at ease for the first time since the receipt of my son’s letter.
“Only let George return by the first of November,” I thought to myself, “and all the aunts in Christendom shall not prevent Jessie Yelverton from being here to meet him.”
THE TEN DAYS. THE FIRST DAY.