ommanded good salaries, and out of this she contrived to board and
maintain me at a school until she married, and Uncle Keith promised that
I should share their home.

I never could understand why Aunt Agatha married him. Perhaps she was
tired of the drudgery of teaching; at forty-five one may grow a little
weary of one's work. Perhaps she wanted a home for her old age, and was
tired of warming herself at other people's fires, and preferred a
chimney corner of her own; but, strange to say, she always scouted these
two notions with the utmost indignation.

"I married your uncle, Merle," she would say, with great dignity,
"because he convinced me that he was the right person for me to marry. I
have no more idea than you how he contrived to instil this notion into
my head, for though I am a plain body and never had any beauty, I must
own I liked tall, good-looking men. But there, my dear, I lived
forty-five years in the world without three things very common in
women's lives--without beauty, without love, and without discontent."
And in this last clause she was certainly right. Aunt Agatha was the
most contented creature in the world.

If Uncle Keith--for never, never would I call him Uncle Ezra, even had
he asked me as a personal favour to do so--if Uncle Keith had been rich
I could have understood the marriage better, being rather a mercenary
and far-sighted young person, but he had only a very small income. He
was managing clerk in some mercantile house, and, being a thrifty soul,
invested all his spare cash instead of spending it.

Aunt Agatha had lived in grand houses all her life, but she was quite
content with the little cottage at Putney to which her husband took her.
They only kept one servant; but Aunt Agatha proved herself to be a
notable housekeeper. She arranged and rearranged the old-fashioned
furniture that had belonged to Uncle Keith's mother until she had made
quite a charming drawing-room; but that was just her way; she had clever
brains, and clever fingers, and to manipulate old materials into new
fashions was just play work to her.

But for me, I am perfectly convinced that Aunt Agatha would have called
herself the happiest woman in the world, but my discontent leavened the
household. If three people elect to live together, the success of the
scheme demands that one of the three should not smile sourly on all
occasions.

For two whole years I tried to be amiable when Uncle Keith was in the
room,