You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother
married my uncle--no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. By
adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're
writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so I
ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her own
aunt,' says I--'her aunt by adoption--she needs her now.'"

Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had
shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and peered
at his hostess.

"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively.

"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic
than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her
sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she
leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!"

"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!"

Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of
itself into her voice.

"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I
thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house
upside down inside of a week."

The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to
say something, and thought better of it.

"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies take
up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution
lessons"--

"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as
if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin'
of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or
take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know."

The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment.

"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in
Illinois, as you do--did you say Illinois or Iowa?"

"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's
the last house afore you come to the Rockies. Law! you can't tell how a
story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'T ain't like a gale o'
wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I
heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week
was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the
'tater-bug--think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in
Missouri, an' here I be."

"I hope