ted it; on
the family Bible his fingers were beating a tattoo as carelessly as they
might have done on the counter of his general store. There was nothing
in his appearance to suggest kin to the lean and cadaverous Professor.
The Professor always seemed to move with effort, but his brother was
alive all over. Though short and fat, he had none of the placidity which
we associate with corpulence. As he talked his hands moved restlessly;
his bristling red mustache accentuated the play of his lips; his heavy
gold watch-chain moved up and down with his breathing; even his hair was
alert.

"He is a remarkable man--I might say, a very remarkable man," were the
words that came to us as we entered the hall. "Of course, you couldn't
understand him--few could. He had to go his own way and would take help
from no one, not even his brother. Upon my word, Judge----"

Our entrance checked him. He rose, and with arms akimbo stood gazing
down at Penelope. She, clinging to my mother, her cheek pressed against
her as she half turned from him, looked up at him, abashed and wondering,
for to her small mind there was in this stranger something awe-inspiring.
The sleek man in spotless, creaseless clothes, with polished boots and
close-shaved, powdered, barbered face, was so different from her unkempt
father that she could hardly believe him kin. Baal would have seemed as
near to her, and had the idol stretched out his arms to take her into his
destroying embrace, she could hardly have been more frightened than when
she saw Mr. Blight's fat hands reaching toward her. Mr. Blight smiled,
and well he might, for this slip of a girl gazing up at him was of his
own blood, and all that was good in that blood found expression in her
sweetness. He had come prepared to see a slattern, ill-fed, unkempt, the
true daughter of shiftless parents and a wretched mountain home; he had
found a graceful little body, and he wanted to take her into his
possession at once.

"Penelope," he exclaimed, "don't you know your Uncle Rufus?"

There was no particular reason why Penelope should know her Uncle Rufus.
She could have submitted herself as easily to the embrace of any
well-dressed, smiling stranger, and she shrank back, but my mother pushed
her forward within reach of the restless hands.

"It's your dear uncle, child," she said soothingly. "He has come to take
you to a nice home."

"And he is going to bring you up," my father added in a wonderful