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“Oh, Aunt Judy, I hope you are not ill. Do come up on deck. The sun is shining and it is such a change from the awful weather in New York. Do come, dear; it will do you good.”

“I am not ill Joy—in the way you mean. Indeed I was never in better physical health in my life.” She said this with grave primness. The girl laughed outright:

“Why on earth Aunt Judy, if you’re well, do you go to bed at ten o’clock in the morning?” Miss Hayes was not angry; there was a momentary gleam in her eye as she said with a manifestedly exaggerated dignity:

“You forget my dear, that I am an old maid!”

“What has old-maidenhood to do with it? But anyhow you are not an old maid. You are only forty!”

“Not forty, Joy! Only forty, indeed! My dear child when that unhappy period comes a single lady is put on the shelf—out of reach of all masculine humanity. For my part I have made up my mind to climb up there, of my own accord, before the virginal undertakers come for me. I am in for it anyhow; and I want to play the game as well as I can.”