ounced,
unmistakable Goodwin nose. And certainly nobody but Aunt Philippa
would have come to meet me arrayed in a wrapper of chocolate print
with huge yellow roses scattered over it, and a striped blue-and-white
apron!

She welcomed me kindly but absent-mindedly, her thoughts evidently
being concentrated on the problem of getting my trunk home. I had only
the one, and in Montreal it had seemed to be of moderate size; but on
the platform of Copely station, sized up by Aunt Philippa's merciless
eye, it certainly looked huge.

"I thought we could a-took it along tied on the back of the buggy,"
she said disapprovingly, "but I guess we'll have to leave it, and I'll
send the hired boy over for it tonight. You can get along without it
till then, I s'pose?"

There was a fine irony in her tone. I hastened to assure her meekly
that I could, and that it did not matter if my trunk could not be
taken up till next day.

"Oh, Jerry can come for it tonight as well as not," said Aunt
Philippa, as we climbed into her buggy. "I'd a good notion to send him
to meet you, for he isn't doing much today, and I wanted to go to Mrs.
Roderick MacAllister's funeral. But my head was aching me so bad I
thought I wouldn't enjoy the funeral if I did go. My head is better
now, so I kind of wish I had gone. She was a hundred and four years
old and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her funeral."

Aunt Philippa's tone was melancholy. She did not recover her good
spirits until we were out on the pretty, grassy, elm-shaded country
road, garlanded with its ribbon of buttercups. Then she suddenly
turned around and looked me over scrutinizingly.

"You're not as good-looking as I expected from your picture, but them
photographs always flatter. That's the reason I never had any took.
You're rather thin and brown. But you've good eyes and you look
clever. Your father writ me you hadn't much sense, though. He wants me
to teach you some, but it's a thankless business. People would rather
be fools."

Aunt Philippa struck her steed smartly with the whip and controlled
his resultant friskiness with admirable skill.

"Well, you know it's pleasanter," I said, wickedly. "Just think what a
doleful world it would be if everybody were sensible."

Aunt Philippa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and disdained
any skirmish of flippant epigram.

"So you want to get married?" she said. "You'd better wait till you're
grown up."

"How old must a pers