er, though generally the
disgrace of the family and not a respectable chaplain from Calcutta.

The lady now turned to her reverend and surprising brother and said:
"John, go and tell them we'll have tea on the lawn."

When he was gone she stood quite still a minute. Then she said: "I'm
going to tell you something, but I want to put you on your honor not to
talk about it to other people. You see it isn't every one I would tell
about it. He, Albert's uncle, I mean, has told me a lot about you, and I
know I can trust you."

We said "Yes," Oswald with a brooding sentiment of knowing all too well
what was coming next.

The lady then said: "Though I am not Albert's uncle's grandmother, I did
know him in India once, and we were going to be married, but we had
a--a--misunderstanding."

"Quarrel?" "Row?" said Noel and H. O. at once.

"Well, yes, a quarrel, and he went away. He was in the Navy then. And
then,... well, we were both sorry; but well, anyway, when his ship came
back we'd gone to Constantinople, then to England, and he couldn't find
us. And he says he's been looking for me ever since."

"Not you for him?" said Noel.

"Well, perhaps," said the lady.

And the girls said "Ah!" with deep interest. The lady went on more
quickly. "And then I found you, and then he found me, and now I must
break it to you. Try to bear up...."

She stopped. The branches crackled, and Albert's uncle was in our midst.
He took off his hat. "Excuse my tearing my hair," he said to the lady,
"but has the pack really hunted you down?"

"It's all right," she said, and when she looked at him she got miles
prettier quite suddenly. "I was just breaking to them...."

"Don't take that proud privilege from me," he said. "Kiddies, allow me
to present you to the future Mrs. Albert's uncle, or shall we say
Albert's new aunt?"

* * * * *

There was a good deal of explaining done before tea--about how we got
there, I mean, and why. But after the first bitterness of disappointment
we felt not nearly so sorry as we had expected to. For Albert's uncle's
lady was very jolly to us, and her brother was awfully decent, and
showed us a lot of first-class native curiosities and things, unpacking
them on purpose: skins of beasts, and beads, and brass things, and
shells from different savage lands besides India. And the lady told the
girls that she hoped they would like her as much as she liked them, and
if they wanted a ne