If she was glad to see him!  One would have supposed that ten years and two oceans had elapsed since their last meeting the month before.

She fairly screamed with joy.

“Jack!—­You dear, dear, dear boy!  Well, if I ever did!—­When did you come?”

He was by the bed hugging her.  “And how are they all?  How is the city?  Oh, Jack, if I could only go back with you this time!”

“Never mind, Aunt Mary; you’ll be coming soon—­in the spring, you know.”

Aunt Mary sank back on the pillows.

“Jack,” she said, “if I have to wait for spring, I shall die.  I ain’t strong enough to be able to bear livin’ in the country much longer.  I’ve pretty much made up my mind to buy a house in town and just keep this place so’s to have somewhere to put Lucinda.”

“Do you think you’d be happy in town, Aunt Mary?” Jack yelled; “I mean if you lived there right along?”

“I don’t see how I could be anythin’ else.  I don’t see how anyone could be anythin’ else.  I want a nice house with a criss-cross iron gate in front of it an’ an automobile.  An’—­I don’t want you to say nothin’ about this to her jus’ yet—­but I’m goin’ to keep Granite to look after everythin’ for me.  I don’t ever mean to let Granite go again.  Never.  Not for one hour.”

Jack smiled.  He felt as if Fate was playing into his hands.

“I want you to live with me,” Aunt Mary continued, “an’ I want the house big enough so’s Clover an’ Mitchell an’ Burnett can come whenever they feel like it and stay as long as they like.  I don’t want any house except for us all together.  Oh, my!  Seems like I can’t hardly wait!”

She leaned back and shut her eyes in a sort of impatient ecstasy of joys been and to be.

Jack reached forward to get a cigarette from the box on the table at the bedside.

“Do you smoke now, Aunt Mary?” he inquired, as he took a match.

“No, Granite does.”

“Janice does!” he repeated, quickly knitting his brows.

“Yes, she does it for me—­I’m so happy smellin’ the smell.  They made her a little sick at first but she took camphor and now she don’t mind.  Not much—­not any.”

Jack arose and walked about the room.  The idea of his darling sickening herself to provide smoke for Aunt Mary braced him afresh to the conflict.

“What do you do all day?” he asked, presently.

“Well, we do most everythin’.  When Lucinda’s out she does Lucinda for me an’ when Lucinda’s in she does Joshua.  It’s about as amusin’ as anythin’ you ever saw to see her do Lucinda.  I never found Lucinda amusin’, Lord knows, but I like to see Granite do her.  An’ we play cards, an’ she dances, an’—­”

“Aunt Mary,” said Jack abruptly, “do you know the people who had Janice want her back again?”

“I didn’t quite catch that,” said his aunt, “but you needn’t bother to repeat it because I ain’t never goin’ to let her go.  Not never.”