But the Gilsons and Jeff Saxton were happy about it all--till the car
turned from a main thoroughfare upon a muddy street of shacks that clung
like goats to the sides of a high cut, a street unchanged from the
pioneer days of Seattle.
"Good heavens, Claire, you aren't taking us to see Aunt Hatty, are you?"
wailed Mrs. Gilson.
"Oh yes, indeed. I knew the boys would like to meet her."
"No, really, I don't think----"
"Eva, my soul, Jeff and you planned our tea party today, and assured me
I'd be so interested in Milt's bachelor apartment---- By the way, I'd
been up there already, so it wasn't entirely a surprise. It's my turn to
lead." She confided to Milt, "Dear old Aunt Hatty is related to all of
us. She's Gene's aunt, and my fourth cousin, and I think she's distantly
related to Jeff. She came West early, and had a hard time, but she's
real Brooklyn Heights--and she belongs to Gramercy Park and North
Washington Square and Rittenhouse Square and Back Bay, too, though she
has got out of touch a little. So I wanted you to meet her."
Milt wondered what unperceived bag of cement had hardened the faces of
Saxton and the Gilsons.
Silent save for polite observations of Claire upon tight skirts and
lumbering, the merry company reached the foot of a lurching flight of
steps that scrambled up a clay bank to a cottage like a hen that has set
too long. Milt noticed that Mrs. Gilson made efforts to remain in the
limousine when it stopped, and he caught Gilson's mutter to his wife,
"No, it's Claire's turn. Be a sport, Eva."
Claire led them up the badly listed steps to an unpainted porch on which
sat a little old lady, very neat, very respectable, very interested, and
reflectively holding in one ivory hand a dainty handkerchief and a black
clay pipe.
"Hello, Claire, my dear. You've broken the relatives' record--you've
called twice in less than a year," said the little old lady.
"How do you do, Aunt Harriet," remarked Mrs. Gilson, with great lack of
warmth.
"Hello, Eva. Sit down on the edge of the porch. Those chickens have made
it awful dirty, though, haven't they? Bring out some chairs. There's two
chairs that don't go down under you--often." Aunt Harriet was very
cheerful.
The group lugubriously settled in a circle upon an assemblage of
wind-broken red velvet chairs and wooden stools. They resembled the
aftermath of a funeral on a damp day.
Claire was the cheerful undertaker, Mrs. Gilson the grief-stricken
widow.
Claire waved at Milt and conversed with Aunt Hatty in a high brisk
voice: "This is the nice boy I met on the road that I think I told you
about, Cousin Hatty."
The little old lady screwed up the delicate skin about her eyes,
examined Milt, and cackled, "Boy, there's something wrong here. You
don't belong with my family. Why, you look like an American. You
haven't got an imitation monocle, and I bet you can't talk with a New
York-London accent. Why, Claire, I'm ashamed of you for bringing a human
being into the Boltwood-Gilson-Saxton tomb and expecting----"