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----"




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