eir pretty, red-haired cousin and neighbor.

"While we've got a little Dutch courage left, let's go on out to Buck
Hill and tackle Cousin Ann," said Big Josh. "Now remember, all at
once and nobody backing out and coughing. Everybody speak up strong
and all together."

A handsome family of men they were, taken all in all--handsome and
prosperous, good citizens, honorable, upright, courageous--but this
thing of deliberately getting together to inform a poor old woman that
no longer would their several homes be ready to receive her made them
seem to themselves anything but admirable.

"Darn the women folks, I say!" rumbled Big Josh. "If they weren't so
selfish and bent on their own pleasure we would not have to be doing
this miserable thing."

"Perhaps if we had helped them a little with Cousin Ann they wouldn't
be kicking so," humbly suggested Little Josh.

"Help them! Help them! How in Pete's name could we help them any more?
I am sure I have allowed Cousin Ann to give me a lamp mat every
Christmas since I was born and my attic is full of her hoop skirts." A
smile went the rounds and Big Josh subsided.

Buck Hill never looked more hospitable or attractive, as the cousins
speeded up the driveway--two cars full of Kentucky blue blood. The
gently rolling meadows dotted with grazing cattle, the great friendly
beech trees on the shaven lawn, the monthly roses in the garden, the
ever-blooming honeysuckle clambering over the summer-house seemed to
cry out, "Welcome to all!"

"Gee! Poor Cousin Ann!" muttered one. "No wonder she likes to stay
here."

An unwonted silence fell on the group, as they tiptoed up the front
walk. They could not have said why they walked so quietly, but had
they been called on to serve as pall bearers to their aged relative
they would not have entered into the duty with any greater solemnity.

Aunt Em'ly appeared at the front door.

"Lawsamussy, Marse Bob, you done give me a turn," she gasped, bobbing
a courtesy to the assembled gentlemen. "Is you done et?"

"Yes, yes, Aunt Em'ly, we have had dinner, but we should like to--"

"Yassir! I'll git the ice cracked in no time an' sen' Kizzie fer some
mint."

"Not yet, Aunt Em'ly," faltered her master miserably. "A little later,
perhaps, but now--"

"I know! You done had a po' dinner an' come home fer some 'spectable
victuals. It ain't gonter take me long."

"Not at all, Aunt Em'ly, we had an excellent dinner, but now--"

"Call Miss Ann Pey