been quite crazy at the end. She had no right to do this. I shall refuse to let this house be used for the service."
"I'm afraid you wouldn't have the right to do that, Aunt Blanche."
"Not have the right? What do you mean? The house will of course eventually be mine. I certainly have the right to do what I will with my own property, and I do not intend to have any funeral here to spoil the sale of the house. You see, I have found a purchaser for it already. Someone I met on the train, and he's coming here to-morrow morning to look the house over. We certainly can't let him see a funeral and dead people here. He would never want to buy it under those circumstances, so gruesome."
A wave of color flew up into Dale's cheeks and then receded suddenly as she remembered her promises to her grandmother not to get angry in talking with her aunt, but to remember to take a deep breath and lift her heart in prayer when she felt tempted. Grandmother had been so anxious that all things should be done decently and in order, and she must have known, too, just what provocative things might be said. So Dale drew a deep breath with partly closed eyes for an instant and a lifting of her heart to God for help.
"Why, the house isn't for sale, Aunt Blanche," she said quite sweetly, in a pleasant tone.
"What do you mean?" screamed the lady. "Do you mean to say that the house has already been sold and Grandmother was only renting it? I always understood that it was her own."
But just then Corliss raised her voice from the foot of the stairs. "Mother, if you stand there and chew the rag with Dale any longer, you won't get anything done, and I simply won't stay in his house to-night the way things are. I feel as if I was about to faint this minute. Where is my medicine? I'm going to faint. I am! Come quick!" And Corliss slumped down on the stairs and dropped her head back on the step above, rolling her eyes and gasping for breath.
Her mother flew wildly down the stairs, wafting back angry words to Dale: "There, see what you've done now! You'd better send for a doctor. These spells of hers are sometimes very serious. Powelton! Powelton! Where are you? Go out in the kitchen and get a pitcher of cold water, and a glass and spoon, and then look in my black bag for Corliss's medicine. Be quick about it, too."
Corliss was presently restored to sufficient consciousness to talk again, and she began to whine at her mother. "Moms, you've simply got to get things going. You can't have night coming down and all this funeral stuff around. I simply would die to be in a house with a dead body."
Then Dale stepped up quietly and spoke with dignity and sweetness. "Corliss, if you would just come up into the room and see Grandmother, how sweet and pretty she looks, just like a saint lying there with the soft lace around her neck and her dear hands folded and the loveliest smile on her gentle lips, you wouldn't feel this way."
But Dale's plea was interrupted by a most terrific scream of utter terror that must have been heard throughout the neighborhood. "No! No! No! I won't! I won't ever see her. How perfectly horrid of you to say that. Take me out! Take me out of this house!"
This was followed by a quick exit to the front porch and a flinging of the girl's body down in a chair, where she sat moaning and wailing in a tempest of hysterics.
Then her mother came back into the house to Dale. "Dale, you'll have to tell me someplace where I can take her until you can make other arrangements. Corliss will be a wreck unless we can get her out of here."
Dale, with a quick uplifting breath, thought rapidly.
"Perhaps you would like to take her to the Inn," she said coolly. "I think they might have a room there. At least they would have a reception room where she could lie down on a couch till you could find a room that would do. I'm sorry I don't know of a boardinghouse that is not full to the brim with defense workers just now. Or it might be one of the neighbors would let her lie down in the parlor till she gets control of herself. But certainly it is impossible to make any different arrangements here in the house. These are Grandmother's own arrangements, and I intend to see that they are carried out. If Corliss cannot get used to the idea, she might stay at the hotel or down at the station till the service is over. Now if you'll excuse me, Aunt Blanche, I think I'm needed in the kitchen. The dinner will be ready in about a half hour. Perhaps Corliss will feel better after she has had something to eat."
"No!" screamed Corliss, uncovering her sharp ears. "I'll not eat a mouthful in this house! I'm going to the hotel."
But Dale went into the kitchen to face an indignant old servant.
"Let her go to the hotel!" said Hattie furiously. "We don't want her screaming around here, desacratin' Grandma's house for her when she ain't fairly out of it yet. We don't want 'em here. Let the whole kit of 'em go. We don't want to house 'em or feed 'em or nothin'."
"There, there, Hattie," said Dale. "Remember what Grandmother said."
"Yes, I know; only Miss Dale, it ain't fair for you. You workin' an' slavin' to get ready for 'em, an' then they act like this! It ain't reasonable."
"Yes, I know," said Dale wearily, "but it will soon be over and they'll be gone."
"Yeah?" said the old woman. "I wonder, will they?"
And then Dale could hear her aunt calling loudly for her, and she went back into the living room to see what new trouble might have arisen.
She found her aunt most irate. "Dale, what in the world was that you said about the house just as Corliss was taken ill? Did I understand you to say that you thought this house was not for sale? What did you mean by that?"
"I meant just what I said, Aunt Blanche," said Dale firmly. "The house is definitely not for sale."
"But how could you possibly know that?" asked the aunt sharply. "Grandmother didn't rent it, did she? I always understood that she was the full owner."
"No, Aunt Blanche. Grandmother did not own the house at all. It was just to be her home while she lived, but she had no ownership in it."
"Well, she did own the house once, I'm sure of that. I remember perfectly well. I think my husband engineered that. I think he paid part, or perhaps it was the whole price for it. And of course it was to be mine after Grandmother was gone."
"I'm sorry you have misunderstood, Aunt Blanche," said Dale quietly, "but that was not the case. Grandmother never owned the house, or even a part of it. The house is mine. My father bought it for me before he went away on business. Later he was killed, and there was a proviso that Grandmother was always to have a home here as long as she lived. The house was left in trust for Grandmother and me until I should come of age, and that happened just a year ago, you remember."
"How ridiculous! That's a pretty story for you to concoct out of whole cloth. I suppose the real truth of the matter is that you coaxed Grandmother into signing some papers and giving the house over to you, but a thing like that will be easily broken. And of course it will not be hard to prove that your father never had any money before he went to war. He was a sort of a ne'er-do-well, as I understand it, and couldn't have bought a house if he wanted to. As for you, you were only a babe in arms when he went away. I don't believe that even Grandmother could have helped to make up a story like this, much as she disliked me."
"Aunt Blanche, don't you think perhaps we had better leave this decision until after dinner? Hattie has just told me that the dinner is all ready to be served, and I'm sure you must be hungry. If Corliss doesn't care to eat in the house, would she like to have a tray brought out to the side porch? It is pretty well shaded with vines and nobody would be likely to see her, and wouldn't it be good for us to sit down now and postpone
