Aunt Mary thumbed her trunk key.

“I want a nightgown,” she said; “maybe I’ll want something else later.  Maybe.”

“You’re not going to bed!”

She drew herself up.

“I guess I can if I want to; I guess I can.  There’s the bed and here’s me.”

“Whatever are you saying?  It isn’t half-past six o’clock.”

“I’m not prayin’ about anything,” said the old lady.  “I don’t pray about things.  I do ’em when needful.  And when I’m tired I go to bed.”

“All right, Aunt Mary,” with sugary sweetness and lamb-like submissiveness.  “I thought we’d dine out together, but if you don’t want to, we needn’t.  And if you feel like it when you waken, we can.”

“Dine out,” said Aunt Mary, blankly; “has the cook left?  I never was a great approver of goin’ and eatin’ at boarding houses.”

“Well, never mind,” Jack said in a key pitched to rhyme with high C.  “I’ll leave you now—­and we can see about everything later.”

He kissed her, and retired from the room.

“Did he say we’re goin’ out to dinner?” Aunt Mary asked, when she was left alone with the maid, who hurried to take her bonnet and shawl, and get her into juxtaposition with the tea-tray as rapidly as possible.

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl screamed, nodding.

“I don’t want to,” said the old lady firmly.  “Lots of trouble comes through gettin’ out of house habits.  I’ve come here to take care of a sick boy and not to go gallivantin’ round myself.  I’ve seen the evils of gallivantin’ a good deal lately and I don’t want to see no more.  Not here and not nowhere.”

Then she began to eat and drink and reflect, all at the same time.

“By the way, what’s your name?” she asked, suddenly.  “Jack didn’t tell me.”

“Janice, ma’am.”

“Granite?” said Aunt Mary.  “What a funny idea to name you that!  Did they call you for the tinware or for the rocks?”

“I don’t know,” shrieked Janice, who was busily occupied in unpacking the traveler’s trunk.

Her new mistress watched her with a critical eye at first, but it became a more or less sleepy eye as the warmth of the tea meandered slowly through its owner.  There was a battle within Aunt Mary’s brain; she wanted to please Jack, and she was almost dead with sleep.

“Do you think that I ought to try and go out with my nephew to-night?” she asked Janice.

“If it was me, I should go,” cried the maid.

“I never was called slow before,” Aunt Mary said, bridling.  “I’ll thank you to remember your place, young woman.”

Janice explained.

“Oh!  I didn’t hear plainly,” said Aunt Mary.  “I don’t always.  Well go or not go, I’ve got to sleep first.  I’m dreadfully sleepy, and I’ve always been a great believer in sleepin’ when you’re sleepy.”

The fact of the sleepiness was so evident that no attempt was made to gainsay it.  Janice brought down a quilt from the closet and tucked her charge up luxuriously on the great bed.  Five minutes later she was in dreamland.