“What a featherweight you are!” he laughed.  “You’ll dance the Thames on fire some day.  Giddy, what?”

Gracie lay in his arms in a collapsed condition.  “You—­you made me do it!” she panted.

“To be sure!” said Piers.  “I’m a wizard.  Didn’t you know?  I can make anybody do anything.”  There was a ring of triumph in his voice.

Jeanie drew a deep breath and nodded from her sofa.  “It’s called hyp—­hyp—­Aunt Avery, what is the word?”

“Aunt Avery doesn’t know,” said Piers.  “And why Aunt Avery, I wonder?  You’ll be calling me Uncle Piers next.”

Both children laughed.  “I have a special name for you,” Jeanie said.

But Piers was not attending.  He cast a daring glance across the room at Avery who was darning stockings under the lamp.

“Do they call you Aunt Avery because you are so old?” he enquired, as Avery did not respond to it.

She smiled a little.  “I expect so,” she said.

“Oh no!” said Jeanie politely.  “Only because we are children and she is grown up.”

Piers, with Gracie still lounging comfortably on his knee, bowed to her.  “I thank your majesty.  I appeal to you as queen of this establishment; am I—­as a grown-up—­entitled to drop the title of Aunt when addressing the gracious lady in question?”

Again he glanced towards Avery, but she did not raise her eyes.  She worked on, still with that faint, enigmatical smile about her lips.

Jeanie looked slightly dubious.  “I don’t think you could ever call her Aunt, could you?” she said.

Piers turned upon the music-stool, and with one of Gracie’s fingers began to pick out an impromptu tune that somehow had a saucy ring.

“I like that,” said Gracie, enchanted.

He laughed.  “Yes, it’s pretty, isn’t it?  It’s—­Avery without the Aunt.”

He began to elaborate the tune, accompanying it with his left hand, to Gracie’s huge delight, “Here we come into a minor key,” he said, speaking obviously and exclusively to Gracie; “this is Avery when she is cross and inclined to be down on a fellow.  And here we begin to get a little excited and breathless; this is Avery in a tantrum, getting angrier and angrier every moment.”  He hammered out his impertinent little melody with fevered energy, protest from Gracie notwithstanding.  “No, you’ve never seen her in a tantrum of course.  Thank your lucky stars you haven’t!  It’s an awful sight, take my word for it!  She calls you a brute and nearly knocks you down with a horsewhip.”  The music became very descriptive at this point; then gradually returned to the original refrain, somewhat amplified and embellished.  “This is Avery in her everyday mood—­sweet and kind and reasonable,—­the Avery we all know and love—­with just a hint of what the French call ’diablerie’ to make her—­tout-a-fait adorable.”

He cast his eyes up at the ceiling, and then, releasing Gracie’s hand, brought his impromptu to a close with a few soft chords.