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And now the situation hung all too nicely balanced on the extreme edge of the absolutely impossible. Would this middle-aged lady—an aunt beyond doubt—an aunt who so long had played a double rôle, assume, now that one rôle must be chosen, the part of Aunt Eliza the Terrible or of Aunt Kate the Kind? The aunt was dumb. Kitty was dumb. But the editor had his wits about him, and Kate, though shaken, was not absolutely paralysed.

“It’s almost too good to be true,” he said, “that my Aunt Kate is really your Aunt Eliza. Aunt Kate, Kitty and I have just decided that we can’t do without each other. I am so glad that you are the first to wish us joy.”

At his words all the “Kate” in the aunt rose triumphant, trampling down the “Eliza.”

“My dear boy,” she said—and she said it in a voice which Kitty had never heard before—the sound of that voice drew Kitty like a magnet. She did the only possible thing—she put her arms timidly round her aunt’s neck and whispered: “Oh, don’t be Aunt Eliza any more, be Aunt Kate!”

It was Aunt Kate’s arms undoubtedly that