Miss Louisa Lynde had heard the word so often from her niece and nephew, that she imagined herself in full possession of its meaning.  She asked:  “Where had you met him?”

“I met him first,” said the girl, “at Willie Morland’s tea, last week, and to-day I found him at Mrs. Bevidge’s altruistic toot.”

“I didn’t know,” said her aunt, after a momentary attention to her tea, “that jays were interested in that sort of thing.”

The girl laughed.  “I believe they’re not.  It hasn’t quite reached them, yet; and I don’t think it will ever reach my jay.  Mrs. Bevidge tried to work him into the cause, but he refused so promptly, and so-intelligently, don’t you know—­and so almost brutally, that poor Freddy Lancaster had to come and apologize to him for her want of tact.”  Bessie enjoyed the fact, which she had colored a little, in another laugh, but she had apparently not possessed her aunt of the humor of it.  She remained seriously-attentive, and the girl went on:  “He was not the least abashed at having refused; he stayed till the last, and as we came out together and he was going my way, I let him walk home with me.  He’s a jay, but he isn’t a common jay.”  Bessie leaned forward and tried to implant some notion of Jeff’s character and personality in her aunt’s mind.

Miss Lynde listened attentively enough, but she merely asked, when all was said:  “And why was Alan vexed with you about him?”

“Well,” said the girl, falling back into her chair, “generally because this man’s a jay, and particularly because he’s been rather a baddish jay, I believe.  He was suspended in his first year for something or other, and you know poor Alan’s very particular!  But Molly Enderby says Freddy Lancaster gives him the best of characters now.”  Bessie pulled down her mouth, with an effect befitting the notion of repentance and atonement.  Then she flashed out:  “Perhaps he had been drinking when he got into trouble.  Alan could never forgive him for that.”

“I think,” said her aunt, “it is to your brother’s credit that he is anxious about your associations.”

“Oh, very much!” shouted Bessie, with a burst of laughter.  “And as he isn’t practically so, I ought to have been more patient with his theory.  But when he began to scold me I lost my temper, and I gave him a few wholesome truths in the guise of taunts.  That was what made him go away, I suppose.”

“But I don’t really see,” her aunt pursued,—­“what occasion he had to be angry with you in this instance.”

“Oh, I do!” said Bessie.  “Mr. Durgin isn’t one to inspire the casual beholder with the notion of his spiritual distinction.  His face is so rude and strong, and he has such a primitive effect in his clothes, that you feel as if you were coming down the street with a prehistoric man that the barbers and tailors had put a ‘fin de siecle’ surface on.”  At the mystification which appeared in her aunt’s face the girl laughed