o still," said Mr. Byrne. "At any rate, you must treat me
so, and then I shall be quite content. But I must be going. I shall see
you to-morrow after I've had it out with that donkey Norris. What a
stupid idiot he is, to be sure!" and for a moment Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot
looked quite fierce. "And then I must see little Vic. What time shall I
come to-morrow, Alice?"

"Whenever you like, uncle," she said. "Will you not come and stay here
altogether?"

"No, thank you, my dear. I've got my own ways, you see. I'm a fussy old
fellow. And I've got my servant--my blackamoor. He'd frighten all the
neighbours. And you'd fuss yourself, thinking I wasn't comfortable. I'll
come up to-morrow afternoon and stay on to dinner, if you like. And just
leave the boy to me a bit. Good night, all of you; good night."

And in another moment the little old gentleman was gone.

The two girls and their mother sat staring at each other when he had
disappeared.

"Isn't it like a dream? Can you believe he has really come, mamma?" said
Elsa.

"Hardly," replied her mother. "But I am very thankful. If only Geoff
will not vex him."

Elsa and Frances said nothing. They had their own thoughts about their
brother, but they felt it best not to express them.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.

FOOLISH GEOFF.

"Is he like what you expected, Elsa?" asked Frances, when they were in
their own room.

"Who? Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot? I'm sure I don't know. I don't think I ever
thought about what he'd be like."

"Oh, I _had_ an idea," said Frances. "Quite different, of course, from
what he really is. I had fancied he'd be tall and stooping, and with a
big nose and very queer eyes. I think I must have mixed him up with the
old godfather in the 'Nutcracker of Nuremberg,' without knowing it."

"Well, he's not so bad as that, anyway," said Elsa. "He looks rather
shrivelled and dried up; but he's so very neat and refined-looking. Did
you notice what small brown hands he has, and such _very_ bright eyes?
Isn't it funny that he's only an adopted uncle, after all?"

"I think mamma had really forgotten he wasn't our real uncle," said
Frances. "Elsa, I am very glad he has come. I think poor mamma has been
far more unhappy than she let us know. She does look so ill."

"It's half of it Geoff," said Elsa, indignantly. "And now he must needs
spoil Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot's arrival by his tempers. Perhaps it's just
as well, however. 'By the pricki