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smiling. “Some day everything I have will belong to Fancy, and I think to keep Fancy with me.”
    “ I think you’ve been joking with us,” Essex said, his voice flat, and without life. “It’s one of your jokes, Orianna. You want us all to be frightened, and beg, and then you will laugh and say you were joking—”
    “Do you really think so, Essex? Then I will be interested to see how far my joke will go before you beg. Richard?” Mr. Halloran opened his eyes and smiled. “Bedtime,” he said cheerfully. Mrs. Halloran turned the wheel chair. “Goodnight,” she said; “Goodnight,” Mr. Halloran said, and Mrs. Halloran had pushed the wheel chair almost to the door before Essex ran to open it for her.
    _____
    Miss Ogilvie was crying, not noisily, but obtrusively; she had cried slightly when Lionel died, but her tears then had been more formal, and she had kept her nose from turning red. Aunt Fanny sat in patient grimness, staring into the fire. Her hands were folded in her lap; when her brother and sister-in-law left the room Aunt Fanny had said “Goodnight, Richard,” and had not spoken since. Essex walked, because when he was still he saw himself; “Cringing,” he said, “fetching and lying and spying and outraging, and turned away as I deserve. Aunt Fanny,” he said, “Miss Ogilvie—we are contemptible.”
    “I always tried to do what was best,” Miss Ogilvie said miserably. “She had no right to speak to me so.”
    “It was true,” Essex said. “I was shallowly protected; I thought I was clever and quick and invulnerable, and that is not a very good protection; I thought she was fond of me, and I made myself into a pet monkey.”
    “She could have broken it more gently,” Miss Ogilvie said.
    “An ape, a grotesque little monster.”
    “Be quiet,” said Aunt Fanny, and they turned to her, surprised. She was looking toward the door; it opened, and Fancy slipped in.
    “Fancy,” said Aunt Fanny, “your grandfather would not like you to be downstairs so late. Go at once to your room.”
    Disregarding Aunt Fanny utterly, Fancy moved to the fireplace and sat crosslegged on the hearth rug. “I spend a lot of time in here,” she said. “When you’re all in bed, mostly.” She looked directly at Miss Ogilvie. “You snore,” she said.
    Miss Ogilvie, goaded, almost snarled. “You ought to be spanked,” she said.
    Fancy ran her hand richly along the soft hearth rug. “It’s going to belong to me when my grandmother dies,” she said. “When my grandmother dies, no one can stop the house and everything from being mine.”
    “Your grandfather—” Aunt Fanny said. “My brother—”
    “Well,” said Fancy, as one explaining to an unreasonable child, “of course I know that it really belongs to Grandfather. Because it belongs to the Hallorans. But it doesn’t really seem to, does it? Sometimes I wish my grandmother would die.”
    “Little beast,” said Essex.
    “This is not properly spoken, Fancy,” Miss Ogilvie said gravely. “It is very rude of you to think about your grandmother’s dying, when she has been so kind to you. And it is very rude to steal about the house at night spying on people and then making comments on—” She hesitated. “You ought to behave better,” she said.
    “Furthermore,” said Aunt Fanny, “you had better not count your riches before you get them. You have plenty of toys.”
    “I have my doll house,” Fancy said suddenly, looking for the first time squarely at Aunt Fanny. “I have my beautiful little doll house with real doorknobs and electric lights and the little stove that really works and the running water in the bathtubs.”
    “You are a fortunate child,” Miss Ogilvie said.
    “And all the little dolls. One of them,” Fancy giggled, “is lying in the little bathtub with the water really running. They’re little doll house dolls. They fit exactly into the chairs and the beds. They have little dishes. When I put them to bed they have to