omed." This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And he
blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor continued
with a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle solicitude:
"How is the health of that unfortunate--"

"That's right! Pour your insults! Pour 'em on a sick, afflicted woman!"
The eyes blinked with combative relish.

"Insults? Oh, no, Uncle Hughey!"

"That's all right! Insults goes!"

"Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her mem'ry. Las'
time I heard, they told me she'd got it pretty near all back. Remembered
her father, and her mother, and her sisters and brothers, and her
friends, and her happy childhood, and all her doin's except only your
face. The boys was bettin' she'd get that far too, give her time. But
I reckon afteh such a turrable sickness as she had, that would be
expectin' most too much."

At this Uncle Hughey jerked out a small parcel. "Shows how much you
know!" he cackled. "There! See that! That's my ring she sent me back,
being too unstrung for marriage. So she don't remember me, don't she?
Ha-ha! Always said you were a false alarm."

The Southerner put more anxiety into his tone. "And so you're a-takin'
the ring right on to the next one!" he exclaimed. "Oh, don't go to get
married again, Uncle Hughey! What's the use o' being married?"

"What's the use?" echoed the bridegroom, with scorn. "Hm! When you grow
up you'll think different."

"Course I expect to think different when my age is different. I'm havin'
the thoughts proper to twenty-four, and you're havin' the thoughts
proper to sixty."

"Fifty!" shrieked Uncle Hughey, jumping in the air.

The Southerner took a tone of self-reproach. "Now, how could I forget
you was fifty," he murmured, "when you have been telling it to the boys
so careful for the last ten years!"

Have you ever seen a cockatoo--the white kind with the top-knot--enraged
by insult? The bird erects every available feather upon its person.
So did Uncle Hughey seem to swell, clothes, mustache, and woolly white
beard; and without further speech he took himself on board the Eastbound
train, which now arrived from its siding in time to deliver him.

Yet this was not why he had not gone away before. At any time he could
have escaped into the baggage-room or withdrawn to a dignified distance
until his train should come up. But the old man had evidently got a sort
of joy from this teasing. He had reached that inevitable age