“I say, Beck,” he whispered in her ear, as he gave his snuff-box a tap with his finger, “move that gal’s band-box into the north-west chamber, d’ye hear?” Becky did not tell him that she had already done that, but simply answered, “Yes, sar,” while he returned to Edna, who, wholly unconscious of her promotion or the cause of it, continued her story, which, when she came to the marriage and the accident, was interrupted again with her tears, which fell in showers as she went over with the dreadful scene, the gloomy night, the terrible storm, the capsized car, and Charlie dead under the ruins. Uncle Phil too was excited, and walked the room hurriedly, and took no end of snuff, and blew his nose like a trumpet, but made no comment until she mentioned Mrs. Dana, when he stopped walking, and said: “Poor Sue, if she’d had a different name, I believe I’d kept her for my own, though she wan’t over clever. Dead, you say, and left five young ones, of course; the poorer they be the more they have. Poor little brats. I’ll remember that. And John wanted to marry you? You did better to come here; but where was that aunt, what d’ye call her? I don’t remember as you told me her name.” “Aunt Jerusha Pepper,” Edna said; whereupon something dropped from Uncle Phil’s lip which sounded very much like “the devil!” “What, sir?” Edna asked; and he replied: “I was swearin’ a little. Such a name as that! Jerusha Pepper! No wonder she was hard on you. Did you go back to her at all? and what did she say?” He took four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, and scattered it about so profusely, that Edna received some in her face and moved a little further from him, as she told him the particulars of her going back to Aunt Jerusha, and what the result had been. She intended to speak just as kindly and cautiously of Aunt Jerry as was possible; but it seemed as if some influence she could not resist was urging her on, and Uncle Phil was so much interested and drew her out so adroitly, that, though she softened everything and omitted many things, the old man got a pretty general impression of Aunt Jerusha Pepper, and guessed just how desolate must be the life of any one who tried to live with her. “Yes, yes, I see,” he said, as Edna, frightened to think how much she had told, tried to apologize for Aunt Jerry, and take back some things she had said. “Yes, yes, never mind taking back. I can guess what kind of a firebrand she is. Knew a woman once, as near like her as two peas; might have been twins; pious, ain’t this peppercorn?” Edna did not quite like Uncle Phil’s manner of speaking of her aunt, and she began to defend her, saying she was in the main a very good woman, who possessed many excellent qualities. “Don’t doubt it in the least. Dare say she’s a saint; great on the creed and the catechism. And she is your aunt? Ho, Beck, come here; or stop, I’ll speak to you in the kitchen,” he said, as Becky came to the door.