abella. It
seems that some time back, after she'd planted one hubby in Ohio and
another in Greenwood, and had pinned 'em both down secure with cut
granite slabs, aunty had let herself go for another try. This time she
gets an Englishman. He couldn't have been very tough, to begin with,
for he didn't last long. Neither did a brother of his; although you
couldn't lay that up against Isabella, as brother in law got himself
run over by a train. About all he left was a couple of
fourteen-year-old youngsters stranded in a boarding school. That was
Purdy and Valentine, and they was only half brothers at that, with
nobody that they could look up to for anything more substantial than
sympathy. So it was up to the step-aunt to do the rescue act.

Well, Isabella has accumulated all kinds of dough; but she figures out
that the whole of one half brother was about all she wanted as a
souvenir to take home from dear old England. She looks the two of 'em
over for a day, tryin' to decide which to take, and then Purdy's
'lasses coloured hair wins out against Valentine's brick dust bangs.
She finds a job for Vally, a place where he can almost earn a livin',
gives him a nice new prayer book and her blessin', and cuts him adrift
in the fog. Then she grabs Purdy by the hand and catches the next boat
for New York.

From then on it's all to the downy for Purdy, barrin' the fact that the
old girl's more or less tryin' to the nerves. She buys herself a
double breasted house just off the avenue, gives Purdy the best there
is goin', and encourages him to be as ladylike as he knows how.

And say, what would you expect? I'd hate to think of what I'd be now
if I'd been brought up on a course of dancin' school, music lessons,
and Fauntleroy suits. What else was there for Purdy to do but learn to
drink tea with lemon in it, and lead cotillions? Aunt Isabella's been
takin' on weight and losin' her hearin'. When she gets so that she
can't eat chicken salad and ice cream at one A. M. without rememberin'
it for three days, and she has to buy pearls to splice out her
necklace, and have an extra wide chair put in her op'ra box, she begins
to sour on the merry-merry life, scratches half the entries on her
visitin' list, and joins old lady societies that meet once a month in
the afternoon.

"Of course," says Purdy, "I had no objection to all that. It was
natural. Only after she began to bring Anastasia around, and hint very
plainly what sh