“I wouldn’t ask a girl to buy such a book,” the old lady had said, “but nobody will know you and I have read so many notices about its wickedness, I want to see it for myself.”

Now she looked up when Annie entered.  “It is not wicked at all,” she said in rather a disappointed tone.  “It is much too dull.  In order to make a book wicked, it must be, at least, somewhat entertaining.  The writer speaks of wicked things, but in such a very moral fashion that it is all like a sermon.  I don’t like the book at all.  At the same time a girl like you had better not read it and you had better see that Harriet and Susan don’t get a glimpse of it.  They would be set into fits.  It is a strange thing that both my daughters should be such old maids to the bone and marrow.  You can read it though if you wish, Annie.  I doubt if you understand the wickedness anyway, and I don’t want you to grow up straight-laced like Harriet and Susan.  It is really a misfortune.  They lose a lot.”

Then Annie spoke.  “I shall not be an old maid, I think,” said she.  “I am going to be married.”

“Married!  Who is going to marry you?  I haven’t seen a man in this house except the doctor and the minister for the last twenty years.”

“I am going to marry the minister, Mr. von Rosen.”

“Lord,” said Annie’s grandmother, and stared at her.  She was a queer looking old lady propped up on a flat pillow with her wicked book.  She had removed the front-piece which she wore by day and her face showed large and rosy between the frills of her night cap.  Her china blue eyes were exceedingly keen and bright.  Her mouth as large as her daughter Harriet’s, not puckered at all, but frankly open in an alarming slit, in her amazement.

“When for goodness sake has the man courted you?” she burst forth at last.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know, if you don’t.  You haven’t been meeting him outside the house.  No, you have not.  You are a lady, if you have been brought up by old maids, who tell lies about spades.”

“I did not know until this afternoon,” said Annie.  “Mr. von Rosen and I went out to see his rose-garden, while Aunt Harriet—­”

Then the old lady shook the bed with mirth.

“I see,” said she.  “Harriet is scared to death of roses and she went to sleep in the house and you got your chance.  Good for you.  I am thankful the Eustace family won’t quite sputter out in old maids.”  The old lady continued to chuckle.  Annie feared lest her aunts might hear.  Beside the bed stood a table with the collection of things which was Ann Maria Eustace’s nightly requirement.  There were a good many things.  First was a shaded reading lamp, then a candle and a matchbox; there was a plate of thin bread and butter carefully folded in a napkin.  A glass of milk, covered with a glass dish; two bottles of medicine; two spoons; a saucer of sugared raspberries; exactly one square inch of American cheese on a tiny