e?"

"I didn't know you did!"

"Oh, your old Uncle reads a little of everything," he returned with
a reassuring commonplaceness of manner. He was thunderstruck at his
outburst. Never had he had occasion to talk in that vein. He remembered
how blunt he had been with the older Rose twenty years before--how he
had jumped to the point at the start and landed safely; clinched his
wooing, as he had since realized, by calling her his Rose of Sharon, and
now he was saying the same thing over again, but, oh, how differently.
If only he were thirty-four today, and unmarried!

"You always were the most wonderful person," beamed Rose, completely at
her ease once more, "I used to simply adore you, and I'm beginning to
adore you again."

"That's because you don't know what a glum old grouch I really am."

"You--a grouch? Oh, Uncle Martin!" Her merry, infectious laugh left no
doubt of how ridiculous such a notion seemed.

"Oh, yes; I am."

"Nonsense. You'll have to prove it to me."

"Ask your aunt or Bill; they'll tell you." The acrimony in his tone did
not escape her.

"Then they'll have to prove it to me," she corrected, her gaiety now
a trifle forced. Aunt Rose never had appreciated him, was her quick
thought. Even as a child she had sensed that.

"How are they?" she added quickly. "Bill must be a great boy by this
time."

"Only a few inches shorter than I am," Martin answered indifferently.
"He's one of the kind who get their growth early--by the time he's
fifteen he'll be six feet."

"I'm crazy to see them."

"Well, there's your aunt now," he resumed drily as they drew up before
the little house that contrasted so conspicuously with the fine brick
silos and imposing barns. Gleaming with windows, they loomed out of the
twilight, reminding one, in their slate-colored paint, of magnificent
battleships.

The bright glare of the auto picked Mrs. Wade out for them as
mercilessly as a searchlight. Where she had been stout thirteen years
before, she was now frankly fat. Four keen eyes noted the soft, cushiony
double chin, the heavy breasts, ample stomach, spreading hips, and thick
shoulders, rounded from many years of bending over her kitchen table.
Kansas wind, Kansas well-water and Kansas sun had played their usual
havoc, giving her skin the dull sand color so common in the Sunflower
State. She had come from her cooking and she was hot, beads of sweat
trickling from the deep folds of her neck. Withal, there was somet