“Oh, Miss Dale, dear Miss Dale!” came in woebegone accents from the other side of the tree.  “For the love of heaven, Miss Dale, say no more but take it away from her—­she’ll have herself all riddled through with bullets like a kitchen sieve—­and me too—­if she’s let to have it again.”

“Lizzie, I’m ashamed of you!” said Lizzie’s mistress.  “Come out from behind that tree and stop wailing like a siren.  This weapon is perfectly safe in competent hands and—­” She seemed on the verge of another demonstration of its powers.

“Miss Dale, for the dear love O’ god will you make her put it away?”

Dale laughed again.  “I really think you’d better, Aunt Cornelia.  Or both of us will have to put Lizzie to bed with a case of acute hysteria.”

“Well,” said Miss Van Gorder, “perhaps you’re right, dear.”  Her eyes gleamed.  “I should have liked to try it just once more though,” she confided.  “I feel certain that I could hit that tree over there if my eye wouldn’t wink so when the thing goes off.”

“Now, it’s winking eyes,” said Lizzie on a note of tragic chant, “but next time it’ll be bleeding corpses and—­”

Dale added her own protestations to Lizzie’s.  “Please, darling, if you really want to practice, Billy can fix up some sort of target range—­but I don’t want my favorite aunt assassinated by a ricocheted bullet before my eyes!”

“Well, perhaps it would be best to try again another time,” admitted Miss Van Gorder.  But there was a wistful look in her eyes as she gave the revolver to Dale and the three started back to the house.

“I should never have allowed Lizzie to know what I was doing,” she confided in a whisper, on the way.  “A woman is perfectly capable of managing firearms—­but Lizzie is really too nervous to live, sometimes.”

“I know just how you feel, darling,” Dale agreed, suppressed mirth shaking her as the little procession reached the terrace.  “But—­oh,” she could keep it no longer, “oh—­you did look funny, darling—­ sitting under that tree, with Lizzie on the other side of it making banshee noises and—­”

Miss Van Gorder laughed too, a little shamefacedly.

“I must have,” she said.  “But—­oh, you needn’t shake your head, Lizzie Allen—­I am going to practice with it.  There’s no reason I shouldn’t and you never can tell when things like that might be useful,” she ended rather vaguely.  She did not wish to alarm Dale with her suspicions yet.

“There, Dale—­yes, put it in the drawer of the table—­that will reassure Lizzie.  Lizzie, you might make us some lemonade, I think —­Miss Dale must be thirsty after her long, hot ride.”

“Yes, Miss Cornelia,” said Lizzie, recovering her normal calm as the revolver was shut away in the drawer of the large table in the living-room.  But she could not resist one parting shot.  “And thank God it’s lemonade I’ll be making—­and not bandages for bullet wounds!” she muttered darkly as she went toward the service quarters.