“I HAVE so much to tell you,” said the Beauteous Maiden’s happy voice over the telephone. “Listen. I’ve heard from Mummer. She ’phoned. My Cruel Stepmother, you know, only she isn’t any more. She says she is entirely disenchanted, and she was perfectly lovely to me. I told her all about you, and she was so pleased. She wants to meet you, of course, but I thought it was safer to wait until you had killed the Giant. Mummer says he’s terribly hard to get on with, now that she’s stopped being a witch. He doesn’t like it a bit. When do you think you can kill him?”

“I want to ask you about that,” interrupted Wendell, and he laid his plan before her. “The Beauteous Maiden was very enthusiastic over it.”

“Better!” she exclaimed. “Oh, much better! Now what shall he be changed to? Something useful, as you say.{103}”

“I thought of a victrola,” urged Wendell, who was fond of music. “You haven’t a victrola, have you? And every family needs one.”

“No—o, we haven’t,” said the Beauteous Maiden. “That’s rather good, if we can’t think of anything better. But, let me see. What we really need in our family, more than a victrola, even, is Social Placement,—Background,—that sort of thing, you know. Even with Youth, Innocence, and Beauty, you do need Background, too, if you know what I mean. And it’s been an awfully hard thing to manage—impossible, really—with a Giant and a Witch right in plain sight in the family. Now what can you change the Giant to that will be most useful for Background?”

“Mayflower Society?” said Wendell. “Sons of the American Revolution? We have a lot of those in our family. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“In a way,” said the Beauteous Maiden. “But those things aren’t any use unless they are handled properly. I’ll tell you the kind of thing I mean,—a Harvard professor, say. That would give us Atmosphere as well as Background.”

“But they’d have to create a special Chair for him, wouldn’t they?” hesitated Wendell.

“Why, no,” said the Beauteous Maiden. “You’ll change him down small, of course, and then he can use any chair they have.”

“Well, all right,” said Wendell. “I’ll do it this afternoon, if you like.”

“Oh, will you?” cried the Beauteous Maiden.{104} “That will be simply wonderful. And we’ll go out to call on them to-morrow afternoon if you can.”

So it was settled. Wendell was to work the charm at once and meet the Maiden at the Frog Pond after school next day. Of course, it was a perfectly easy thing for Wendell to do, after all his practice; so he was sure the charm had worked, and felt entirely safe in going out to Brookline with the Beauteous Maiden next afternoon. She looked very charming when he met her at the Frog Pond. Even though not liking her general style, Wendell had to admit that she was good looking.

“I’m making a tremendous success,” she told him. “And listen. I have such good news for the family. I’ve got a job for my sister in character parts. Isn’t that fine! Poor thing! Of course she never could play anything calling for Youth, Innocence and Beauty, but she has just the face for character parts. Don’t you think so?”

How very strange it seemed to Wendell to be alighting from the electric at the familiar corner, to be retracing his hazardous steps towards that dangerous house, in perfect safety, on an entirely conventional errand. He said so to the Beauteous Maiden, and she smiled and answered softly.

“I know you ran some frightful risks for my sake. Believe me, I am not unappreciative, as time will show.”

Wendell wished he hadn’t mentioned it.

The neat white house was unchanged without, but the moment the Beauteous Maiden opened the door with her latch key and called, “Mummer, I’m here,{105}” Wendell was conscious of an entire change in the mental atmosphere. The Good Stepmother came running out from the kitchen to meet them. Her gray hair was arranged in a recent and becoming fashion; she had had her projecting teeth out and had some new pivot teeth that looked much better; and she wore an inexpensive but tasteful afternoon fr............