"Do go," I said, very politely. "They are charming people." And he

accepted at once!

It was a transparent plot on Bella's part: Two elderly maiden ladies,

house miles from anywhere, long evenings in the music room with an open

fire and Bella at the harp playing the two songs she knows.

When we were ready and gathered in the kitchen, in the darkness, of

course, Dal went up on the roof and signaled with a lantern to the cars

on the drive. Then he went downstairs, took a last look at the drawing

room, fired the papers, shook on the powder, opened the windows and

yelled "fire!"

Of course, huddled in the kitchen we had heard little or nothing. But we

plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling

"fire," and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of the

house. And at that instant we remembered Aunt Selina!

That was the cause of the whole trouble. I don't know why they turned on

me; she wasn't my aunt. But by the time we had got her out of bed, and

had wrapped her in an eiderdown comfort, and stuck slippers on her feet

and a motor veil on her head, the glare at the front of the house was

beginning to die away. She didn't understand at all and we had no time

to explain. I remember that she wanted to go back and get her "plate,"

whatever that may be, but Jim took her by the arm and hurried her along,

and the rest, who had waited, and were in awful tempers, stood aside and

let them out first.

The door to the area steps was open, and by the street lights we could

see a fence and a gate, which opened on a side street. Jim and Aunt

Selina ran straight for the gate; the wind blowing Aunt Selina's comfort

like a sail. Then, with our feet, so to speak, on the first rungs of the

ladder of Liberty, it slipped. A half-dozen guards and reporters came

around the house and drove us back like sheep into a slaughter pen. It

was the most humiliating moment of my life.

Dal had been for fighting a way through, and just for a minute I think

I went Berserk myself. But Max spied one of the reporters setting up a

flash light as we stood, undecided, at the top of the steps, and after

that there was nothing to do but retreat. We backed down slowly, to show

them we were not afraid. And when we were all in the kitchen again, and

had turned on the lights and Bella was crying with her head against Mr.

Harbison's arm, Dal said cheerfully, "Well, it has done some good, anyhow. We have lost Aunt Selina."




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