Lavender and Old Lace

"No, no, Niece Ruth!" exclaimed Mr. Ball, "you ain't interruptin' no

honeymoon. It's a great pleasure to your aunt and me to hev you here--we

likes pretty young things around us, and as long as we hev a home,

you're welcome to stay in it; ain't she Jane?"

"She has sense enough to see, James, that she is interruptin' the

honeymoon," replied Aunt Jane, somewhat harshly. "On account of her

mother havin' been a Hathaway before marriage, she knows things. Not

but what you can come some other time, Ruth," she added, with belated

hospitality.

"Thank you, Aunty, I will. I'll stay just a day or two longer, if you

don't mind--just until Mr. Winfield comes back. I don't know just where

to write to him."

"Mr.--who?" demanded Aunt Jane, looking at her narrowly.

"Mr. Carl Winfield," said Ruth, crimsoning--"the man I am going to

marry." The piercing eyes were still fixed upon her.

"Now about the letters, Aunty," she went on, in confusion, "you could

help Uncle James with the book much better than I could. Of course it

would have to be done under your supervision."

Mrs. Ball scrutinized her niece long and carefully. "You appear to be

tellin' the truth," she said. "Who would best print it?"

"I think it would be better for you to handle it yourself, Aunty, and

then you and Uncle James would have all the profits. If you let some one

else publish it and sell it, you'd have only ten per cent, and even

then, you might have to pay part of the expenses."

"How much does it cost to print a book?"

"That depends on the book. Of course it costs more to print a large one

than a small one."

"That needn't make no difference," said Aunt Jane, after long

deliberation. "James has two hundred dollars sewed up on the inside of

the belt he insists on wearin', instead of Christian suspenders, ain't

you, James?"

"Yes'm, two hundred and four dollars in my belt and seventy-six cents in

my pocket."

"It's from his store," Mrs. Ball explained. "He sold it to a relative of

one of them heathen women."

"It was worth more'n three hundred," he said regretfully.

"Now, James, you know a small store like that ain't worth no three

hundred dollars. I wouldn't have let you took three hundred, 'cause it

wouldn't be honest."

The arrival of a small and battered trunk created a welcome diversion.

"Where's your trunk, Uncle James?" asked Ruth.

"I ain't a needin' of no trunk," he answered, "what clothes I've got

is on me, and that there valise has more of my things in it. When my

clothes wears out, I put on new ones and leave the others for some pore

creeter what may need 'em worse'n me."