"That's a shame!" said Clover indignantly. "I'll get you something that will take that taste out of your mouth double quick. Here!" he called to a waiter, and then he gave the man certain careful directions.

The latter nodded wisely, and a few minutes later brought in a tiny gla.s.s containing a pousse-cafe in three different colors.

"It's a c.o.c.ktail. Drink it quick," Clover directed.

Aunt Mary demurred.

"I never drank a c.o.c.ktail," she began.

"No time like the present to begin," said Clover, "you'll have to learn some day."

"c.o.c.ktails," said Mitch.e.l.l, "are the advance guard of a newer and brighter civilization. They-"

"If she's going to take it at all she must take it now," said Clover authoritatively. "The green and the yellow are beginning to run together.

Quick now!"

His confiding guest drank quick and became the three different colors quicker yet.

"What's the matter?" Jack asked anxiously.

Aunt Mary was speechless.

"He mixed it wrong," said Clover in a sad, discouraged tone. "What she ought to have got first she got last, that's all. The c.o.c.ktail is upside down inside of her, and the effect of it is upside down on the outside of her."

"Feel any better now, Aunt Mary?" Jack yelled.

"I can't seem to keep the purple swallowed," said the poor old lady. "I want to go home. I've always been a great believer in going home when you feel like I do now. In general-as a rule."

"I would strongly recommend your obeying her wishes," said Mitch.e.l.l, with great earnestness. "There's a time for all things, and, in my opinion, she's had about all the queer tastes that she can absorb for to-day.

Things being as they are and mainly as they shouldn't be, I cast my vote in with what looks as if it would soon become the losing side, and vote to bubble back for all we're worth."

There was a general acquiescence in his view of the case, which led them all to pile into "The Threshing Machine" with unaffected haste and rush Aunt Mary bedward as rapidly as was possible considering the hour and the policemen.

Janice received her mistress with the tender welcome that every prodigal may count on and was especially expeditious with tea and toast and a robe de nuit. Aunt Mary sighed luxuriously when she felt herself finally tucked up.

"After all, Granite," she said dreamily, "there's nothin' like gettin'

stretched out to think it over-is there?"

But Janice was turning out the lights.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - AUNT MARY ENTHRALLED

Jack's aunt slept long and dreamlessly again. That thrice-blessed sleep which follows nights abroad in the metropolis.

When, toward four o'clock, Aunt Mary opened her eyes, she was at first almost as hazy in her conceptions as she had found herself upon the previous day.

"I feel as if the automobile was runnin' up my back and over my head," she said, thoughtfully pa.s.sing her hand along the machine's imaginary course.

Then she rang her bell and Janice appeared from the room beyond.

"I guess you'd better give me some of that that you gave me yesterday,"

the elderly lady suggested; "what do you think?"

"Yes, indeed," said Janice-and went at once and brought it in separate gla.s.ses on a tray, and mixed it by pouring, while Aunt Mary looked on with an intuitive understanding that pa.s.sed instinct and bordered on a complete comprehension of things to her hitherto unknown.

"They'd ought to advertise that," she said, as she set down the empty gla.s.s a few seconds later. "There'd be a lot of folks who'd be glad to know there was such a thing when they first wake up mornin's after-after-well, mornin's after anythin'. It's jus' what you want right off; it sort of runs through your hair and makes you begin to remember."

"Yes, ma'am," said Janice, turning to put down the tray, and then crossing the room to seek something on the chimney-piece.

Aunt Mary gave a sudden twist,-as if the drink had infused an effervescing energy into her frame. "Well what am I goin' to do to-day?" she asked.

"Mr. Denham has written out your engagements here," said Janice, handing her a jeweler's box as she spoke.

Aunt Mary tore off the tissue paper with trembling haste-lifted the cover-and beheld a tiny ivory and gold memoranda card.

"Well, that boy!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Shall I read the list aloud to you?" the maid inquired.

"Yes, read it."

So Janice read the dates proposed the night before and Aunt Mary sat up in bed, held her ear-trumpet, and beamed beatifically.

"I don't believe I ever can do all that," she said when Janice paused; "I never was one to rush around pell-mell, but I've always been a great believer in lettin' other folks enjoy themselves an' I shall try not to interfere."

Janice hung the tiny memoranda up beside its owner's watch and stood at attention for further orders.

"But I d'n know I'm sure what I can wear to-night," continued the one in bed; "you know my bonnet was run over yesterday."

"Was it?"

"Yes,-it was the most sudden thing I ever saw. I thought it was the top of my head at first."

"Was it spoiled?"

"Well, it wouldn't do for me again and I don't really believe it would even do for Lucinda. We didn't bring it home with us anyhow an' so its no use talkin' of it any more. I'm sure I wish I'd brought my other with me.

It wasn't quite as stylish, but it set so good on my head. As it is I ain't got any bonnet to wear an' we're goin' in a box, Jack says,-I should hate to look wrong in a box."

"But ladies in boxes do not wear anything," cried Janice reasuringly.

Aunt Mary jumped.

"Not _anything?_"

"On their heads."