Dale Ogden, taxiing up from the two o'clock train some time later, to her surprise discovered the front door locked and rang for some time before she could get an answer. At last, Billy appeared, white-coated, with an inscrutable expression on his face.
"Will you take my bag, Billy—thanks. Where is Miss Van Gorder—taking a nap?"
"No," said Billy succinctly. "She take no nap. She out in srubbery shotting."
Dale stared at him incredulously. "Shooting, Billy?"
"Yes, ma'am. At least—she not shoot yet but she say she going to soon."
"But, good heavens, Billy—shooting what?"
"Shotting pistol," said Billy, his yellow mask of a face preserving its impish repose. He waved his hand. "You go srubbery. You see."
The scene that met Dale's eyes when she finally found the "srubbery" was indeed a singular one. Miss Van Gorder, her back firmly planted against the trunk of a large elm tree and an expression of ineffable distaste on her features, was holding out a blunt, deadly looking revolver at arm's length. Its muzzle wavered, now pointing at the ground, now at the sky. Behind the tree Lizzie sat in a heap, moaning quietly to herself, and now and then appealing to the saints to avert a visioned calamity.
As Dale approached, unseen, the climax came. The revolver steadied, pointed ferociously at an inoffensive grass-blade some 10 yards from Miss Van Gorder and went off. Lizzie promptly gave vent to a shrill Irish scream. Miss Van Gorder dropped the revolver like a hot potato and opened her mouth to tell Lizzie not to be such a fool. Then she saw Dale—her mouth went into a round O of horror and her hand clutched weakly at her heart.
"Good heavens, child!" she gasped. "Didn't Billy tell you what I was doing? I might have shot you like a rabbit!" and, overcome with emotion, she sat down on the ground and started to fan herself mechanically with a cartridge.
Dale couldn't help laughing—and the longer she looked at her aunt the more she laughed—until that dignified lady joined in the mirth herself.
"Aunt Cornelia—Aunt Cornelia!" said Dale when she could get her breath. "That I've lived to see the day—and they call us the wild generation! Why on earth were you having pistol practice, darling—has Billy turned into a Japanese spy or what?"
Miss Van Gorder rose from the ground with as much stateliness as she could muster under the circumstances.
"No, my dear—but there's no fool like an old fool—that's all," she stated. "I've wanted to fire that infernal revolver off ever since I bought it two years ago, and now I have and I'm satisfied. Still," she went on thoughtfully, picking up the weapon, "it seems a very good revolver—and shooting people must be much easier than I supposed. All you have to do is to point the—the front of it—like this and——"
"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.
Miss Van Gorder glared after her departing back. "Lizzie is really impossible sometimes!" she said with stately ire. Then her voice softened. "Though of course I couldn't do without her," she added.
Dale stretched out on the settee opposite her aunt's chair. "I know you couldn't, darling. Thanks for thinking of the lemonade." She passed her hand over her forehead in a gesture of fatigue. "I am hot—and tired."
Miss Van Gorder looked at her keenly. The young face seemed curiously worn and haggard in the clear afternoon light.
"You—you don't really feel very well, do you, Dale?"
"Oh—it's nothing. I feel all right—really."
"I could send for Doctor Wells if——"
"Oh, heavens, no, Aunt Cornelia." She managed a wan smile. "It isn't as bad as all that. I'm just tired and the city was terribly hot and noisy and——" She stole a glance at her aunt from between lowered lids. "I got your gardener, by the way," she said casually.
"Did you, dear? That's splendid, though—but I'll tell you about that later. Where did you get him?"
"That good agency, I can't remember its name." Dale's hand moved restlessly over her eyes, as if remembering details were too great an effort. "But I'm sure he'll be satisfactory. He'll be out here this evening—he—he couldn't get away before, I believe. What have you been doing all day, darling?"
Miss Cornelia hesitated. Now that Dale had returned she suddenly wanted very much to talk over the various odd happenings of the day with her—get the support of her youth and her common sense. Then that independence which was so firmly rooted a characteristic of hers restrained her. No use worrying the child unnecessarily; they all might have to worry enough before tomorrow morning.
She compromised. "We have had a domestic upheaval," she said. "The cook and the housemaid have left—if you'd only waited till the next train you could have had the pleasure of their company into town."
"Aunt Cornelia—how exciting! I'm so sorry! Why did they leave?"
"Why do servants ever leave a good place?" asked Miss Cornelia grimly. "Because if they had sense enough to know when they were well off, they wouldn't be servants. Anyhow, they've