m given her. Didn't she
chant paeans over them?"

"You couldn't notice any paeans," said Hugh, "but several fellows were
trying to chant proposals to her besides uncle E. Ginger! but you
ought to see Elvira now, Miss Eulalie; she's all dimply and pink, and
her hair isn't slick, like it used to be, though it isn't messy,
either; it's kind of crimpled up high, some way, like you'd raveled
out a brown silk dress and piled up the ravelings. She wears new kind
of things, too--dresses with jig-saw things--you know what I mean,
frilly tricks that make you think of peach blossoms, or pie plant when
it's cooked and all pink-white and clear. Why, it's true as preaching.
I never knew her until I met her there at Lindale."

"So my prim, old-maid sister has turned butterfly since she went
gadding?"

"No, she isn't a butterfly; she's too well supplied with brains for
that; she couldn't keep that bunch of old worldlings hypnotized as she
does if she hadn't a pile of original ideas of her own, though the
dimples and frillicues may have caught them in the first place."

"Huh!" commented Eulalie, shortly. "I wonder how you happened to get
so well acquainted with her, just passing through Lindale."

"I couldn't have," Hugh owned; "takes time to learn to appreciate a
girl like that. If it hadn't been for your message, I suppose I never
should have gone beyond the preface of her character; but when I saw
the whirlwind she had stirred up among the dry leaves of the elderly
boys' hearts, I concluded to postpone the tramping trip and watch the
fun a while. Honestly, she was a new experience to me."

"I'm surprised to hear of her frivolity." A slight, shrewish flavor
crept into Eulalie's smooth voice. "The way she used to persecute me
for having a few beaux----"

"Oh, she doesn't want them, nor encourage them," Hugh quickly
explained. "She just stays still, like a lamp, you know, that shines
out soft and clear because it can't help it, and they go bumping along
and sizzle their wings. It isn't her doings. They're mostly all too
old for her--why, do you know, Miss Eulalie, I had supposed she was
older than I, and I discovered she was two years younger?"

"I hope that won't prevent her being a good aunt to you," mused
Eulalie, with restrained spite.

Hugh laughed, cheerily.

"She won't be any kind of an aunt to me--to uncle E.'s disgust. I did
think he deserved a free field, because he discovered her in the
chrysalis--when he came he