Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/356

336 me. I rather think—I remember now—I guessed you imagined it was a man; but that seemed the greatest joke, so I did n't try to undeceive you. Fancy your believing that, all this time, though, and thinking about it!"

"I 've thought of it on an average once every three minutes," said Jack.

"You 're chaffing now, of course. Why, the person I hoped might be kind to me in England is an old lady—oh, but such a funny old lady!—who wanted me to be her companion, and said, no matter when I came, if it were years from now, I must let her know, for she would like to have me with her to help chase away a dragon of a maid she 's afraid of. I met her only once, in the train the night before I arrived at Cannes; but she and I got to be the greatest friends, and her bulldog, Beau ⸺"

"Her bulldog, Beau!"

"A perfect lamb, though he looks like a cross between a crocodile and a gnome. The old lady's name is Miss Paget ⸺"

"My aunt!"

I stared at Jack, not knowing how to take this exclamation. The few Englishmen I met when mamma and I were together, or when I lived with the Milvaines, were rather fond of using that ejaculation when it was apparently quite irrelevant. If you told a youthful Englishman that you were not allowed to walk or bicycle alone in the Bois, he was as likely as not to say "My aunt!" In fact, whatever surprised him was apt to elicit this cry. I have known several young men who gave vent to it at intervals of from half to three-quarters of an hour; but I had never before heard Jack