the bed beside him, as he lay pressed against her warm night-gown. And when he woke again, Mother would be there standing by the side of the bed, and she would whisk him off to her room to be dressed. And life would go on as before.
Aunt Nan seemed to love Garna as much as Gilbert did. And she liked Gilbert. Often, on summer days, she would take him up to her room in the third-story, a region to which Gilbert never ventured alone, for there were queer, pitchy-black closets and alcoves that led far back under the sloping roof, and contained trunks and boxes, in which and behind which you never knew what menacing forces of evil might be hidden. At the top of the stairs was a little hall, lighted by a skylight, through which you saw the blue sky. Aunt Nan's room was shaped like an L, but the ceiling on one side ran down so steeply that Gilbert could stand against the wall and touch the line where it joined the ceiling. Aunt Nan would fix up a pallet on the floor, soft and comfortable, and on hot days Gilbert would roll half-naked on it, while Aunt Nan rubbed his hot arms with a sweet-smelling balsam. Then she would sit and read a great shiny new book, which Gilbert spelled out as "Psychology. James." She had several books on shelves over her desk, and a great bunch of programs stuck together on an iron hook that hung on the wall. In the winter Aunt Nan was not in the house. Mother said she was a teacher, and lived in New York.
Aunt Nan was very tall and very slender and very straight, and she had very black hair that came over her forehead in a kind of bang. She always wore black and white dresses, and she always had a bright fierceness about her that Gilbert liked. She was several years younger than Mother, and she was very proud. There was a stiff exhilaration in her walk and in her laugh that daunted Gilbert a little, but made him like to be with her. Sometimes she would put the tennis-net across the green lawn and play with a neighbor, darting so swiftly, like a long black bird, across the green, hitting the ball so straight and true, and blazing so fiercely with her black eyes when she missed, that Gilbert sat enthralled, motionless, until the set was over and they went in to supper. On those days he would help her mark the court, going to the little barn and watching her fill the marker with white powdery lime, and then helping her push it over the closely-mown grass. The long summer days were full of Aunt Nan. She loved the garden, with its flower-beds, and she
