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The Aunts had caught Carolyn, dragged her to the side of the boat, figuratively speaking, and were forcibly attempting to Crespinize her, while she, Carolyn, twisted on the hook in desperation. "I don't think it's proper," she murmured politely, hiding panic, hoping the idea of propriety would make them pause. Fond hope. Hope betrayed. "Albert is perfectly reliable," said Aunt Clotilde with a dreadful clatter of large, too-white teeth. As, oh, indeed he was. Perfectly reliable. Perfectly self-satisfied. Perfectly capable of taking any ordinary weekend and turning it into the Worst Experience of One's Life. Carolyn, gritting her teeth, stared through the screens of the summer porch at the stretching blue of Long Island Sound and focused on the radio sounds in the background: "Mr. Sandman," being sung by who? Whom. Mr. Sandman. Send me a dream. Not Albert. Aunt Atrena, who always spoke immediately after Aunt Clotilde, did so now in a tone that said, Pay Attention, Child. "Albert thought it would be a treat for you, before you start college. You know he would never do anything to embarrass you." Aside from the embarrassment attendant upon being seen with him, that was probably true. And since she knew no one in Washington, D.C., chances are she could go down there for the weekend, take the tour through the FBI building (a signal honor, according to Albert, not allowed to Just Anyone), see the Smithsonian, go to the opening of whatever show it was at the National Museum, and be returned home unscathed. "He will be so hurt if you don't go," said Aunt Livia, whose function it was to have the Last Word. "Yes, Carolyn. He would be hurt," said Mama. Which clinched it. What Mama meant was, if Carolyn didn't accept Albert's invitation, Mama would be hurt. The aunts would eat her alive. Albert and the aunts, including Albert's mama, Aunt Fan, had decided that Albert and Carolyn were to be a Crespin couple. Albert Crespin was Crespin through and through--a highly inbred member of the clan, Aunt Fan a kind of cousin to Albert's daddy and all that--unlike Carolyn, who was a Crespin only on her father's side, her father having inexplicably married outside his ilk, then unforgivably up and died before he could inculcate proper Crespin values into his only child. Though that wasn't supposed to matter, for Albert was Crespin enough for the two of them. "Of course, Mama, Aunties, if you wish," Carolyn said, smiling sweetly. It was what one said as a last resort. It solved problems. It quieted tempers. It got Carolyn off the hook, at least temporarily, though she had a sick pain in her stomach that did not feel transitory. Aunts Clotilde, Atrena, and Livia exchanged superior glances. There, the faces said. One has only to be Firm With The Child. Mama was looking into her lap, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly. She was frightened of the aunts; she was well and truly hooked and gaffed. Carolyn's father had left an annuity for his widow, an annuity that could be