e him on a Christmas
morning with their shrill "Christmas gift, Massa John!" Not that Uncle
John was a busybody, troubling himself about many things, and seeking
out occasions for obtruding his kindnesses. He lived so secluded a
life in the old family-house on the outskirts of Newport, (we were a
Kentucky family,) as to raise the gossiping curiosity of all new
residents, and to call forth the explanatory remark from the old
settlers, that the Delanos were all queer people, but John Delano was
the queerest of them all.

So Uncle John spent his time between his library and his garden, while
Old Aunt Molly took upon herself the cares of the household, and kept
the pantry always in a condition to welcome the guests, to whom, with
Kentucky hospitality, Uncle John's house was always open. Courteous he
was as the finest gentleman of olden times, and sincerely glad to see
his friends, but I have thought sometimes that he was equally glad to
have them go away. While they were with him he gave them the truest
welcome, leaving garden and books to devote himself to their
entertainment; but I have detected a look of relief on his face as he
shut the gate upon them and sought the shelter of his own little
study, that sanctum which even we children were not allowed to enter
except on special occasions, on a quiet winter evening, or, perhaps,
on as quiet a summer morning.

Uncle John had not always lived in the old house. We knew, that, after
Grandpapa's death, it had been shut up,--for my father's business
engagements would not allow my mother to reside in it, and Uncle John
had been for years among the Indians in the far Northwest. We had
heard of him sometimes, but we had never seen him, we hardly realized
that he was a living person, till one day he suddenly appeared among
us, rough-looking and uncouth in his hunter's dress, with his heavy
beard and his long hair, bringing with him his multifarious
assortment, so charming to our eyes, of buffalo-robes and elk-horns,
wolf-skins and Indian moccasins.

He staid with us that winter, and very merry and happy he seemed to us
at first;--looking back upon it now, I should call it, not happiness,
but excitement;--but as the winter passed on, even we children saw
that all was not right with him. He gradually withdrew himself from
the constant whirl of society in our house, and, by the spring, had
settled himself in the old home at Newport, adding to his old
furniture only his books, whic