DAN:--"He was so thin Uncle Roger used to say he always mistook him for a crack in the atmosphere. One time he stayed here all night and went to prayer meeting and Mr. Marwood asked him to lead in prayer. It had been raining 'most every day for three weeks, and it was just in haymaking time, and everybody thought the hay was going to be ruined, and old Layton got up and prayed that God would send gentle showers on the growing crops, and I heard Uncle Roger whisper to a fellow behind me, 'If somebody don't choke him off we won't get the hay made this summer.'"
CECILY, IN EXASPERATION:--"(Dan, shame on you for telling such irreverent stories.) This is Mrs. Alexander Scott of Markdale.
She has been very sick for a long time."
DAN:--"Uncle Roger says all that keeps her alive is that she's scared her husband will marry again."
CECILY:--"This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind the graveyard."
DAN:--"He's the man who told mother once that he always made his own iodine out of strong tea and baking soda."
CECILY:--"This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale road."
DAN:--"Great temperance man! He never tasted rum in his life. He took the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon with them, and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of brandy. When he swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an owl, 'Give it to me oftener and more at a time.'"
CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--"(Dan, do stop. You make me so nervous I don't know what I'm doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge. He is a minister."
DAN:--"You ought to see his mouth. Uncle Roger says the drawing string has fell out of it. It just hangs loose--so fashion."
Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an imitation of the Rev. Lemuel's, to the utter undoing of Peter, Felix, and myself. Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, and she glanced up with a startled face. What we would have done I do not know had not Felicity at that moment appeared in the doorway with panic-stricken eyes and exclaimed, "Cecily, come here for a moment."
Cecily, glad of even a temporary respite, fled to the kitchen and we heard her demanding what was the matter.
"Matter!" exclaimed Felicity, tragically. "Matter enough! Some of you left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and Pat got into it and what do you think? He went into the spare room and walked all over Aunt Eliza's things on the bed. You can see his tracks plain as plain. What in the world can we do? She'll be simply furious."
I looked apprehensively at Great-aunt Eliza; but she was gazing intently at a picture of Aunt Janet's sister's twins, a most stolid, uninteresting pair; but evidently Great-aunt Eliza found them amusing for she was smiling widely over them.
"Let us take a little clean water and a soft bit of cotton," came Cecily's clear voice from the kitchen, "and see if we can't clean the molasses off. The coat and hat are both cloth, and molasses isn't like grease."
"Well, we can try, but I wish the Story Girl would keep her cat home," grumbled Felicity.
The Story Girl here flew out to defend her pet, and we four boys sat on, miserably conscious of Great-aunt Eliza, who never said a word to us, despite her previously expressed desire to become acquainted with us. She kept on looking at the photographs and seemed quite oblivious of our presence.
Presently the girls returned, having, as transpired later, been so successful in removing the traces of Paddy's mischief that it was not deemed necessary to worry Great-aunt Eliza with any account of it. Felicity announced tea and, while Cecily conveyed Great-aunt Eliza out to the dining-room, lingered behind to consult with us for a moment.
"Ought we to ask her to say grace?" she wanted to know.
"I know a story," said the Story Girl, "about Uncle Roger when he was just a young man. He went to the house of a very deaf old lady and when they sat down to the table she asked him to say grace. Uncle Roger had never done such a thing in his life and he turned as red as a beet and looked down and muttered, 'E-r-r, please excuse me--I--I'm not accustomed to doing that.' Then he looked up and the old lady said 'Amen,' loudly and cheerfully.
She thought Uncle Roger was saying grace all the time."
"I don't think it's right to tell funny stories about such things," said Felicity coldly. "And I asked for your opinion, not for a story."
"If we don't ask her, Felix must say it, for he's the only one who can, and we must have it, or she'd be shocked."
"Oh, ask her--ask her," advised Felix hastily.
She was asked accordingly and said grace without any hesitation, after which she proceeded to eat heartily of the excellent supper Felicity had provided. The rusks were especially good and Great- aunt Eliza ate three of them and praised them. Apart from that she said little and during the first part of the meal we sat in embarrassed silence. Towards the last, however, our tongues were loosened, and the Story Girl told us a tragic tale of old Charlottetown and a governor's wife who had died of a broken heart in the early days of the colony.
"They say that story isn't true," said Felicity. "They say what she really died of was indigestion. The Governor's wife who lives there now is a relation of our own. She is a second cousin of father's but we've never seen her. Her name was Agnes Clark. And mind you, when father was a young man he was dead in love with her and so was she with him."
"Who ever told you that?" exclaimed Dan.
"Aunt Olivia. And I've heard ma teasing father about it, too. Of course, it was before father got acquainted with mother."
"Why didn't your father marry her?" I asked.
"Well, she just simply wouldn't marry him in the end. She got over being in love with him. I guess she was pretty fickle. Aunt Olivia said father felt awful about it for awhile, but he got over it when he met ma. Ma was twice as good-looking as Agnes Clark.
