"That Jack Daniel whiskey, sweetheart," I said, choking up sillily,—"but I am so thankful, now that you are safe—and—and—I was so proud and happy that I drank to each of their healths, till, Eloise, really are you sure, but I’ll swear I am seeing four little heads here under the cover—and if there are—of course, if it is, it’s all right with me—and—and—Eloise, aren’t they holding hands already?" Eloise broke out into her old laugh. "Of course they are," she cried happily, "and there aren’t but two of them, Jack; honest, just two—on my word of honor, none of them have got away; but that’s the funniest part of it all—they clasped hands as soon as they were placed together—just two sweet for anything! Such devotion to each other! Look! And oh, Jack, you must never, never show any partiality, or love one more than the other, or either of them more than me. And don’t take any more of Aunt Lucretia’s Jack Daniel, for it makes me afraid to have you see double this way! Don’t now, for if you took two more of those old drinks you might see triplets—oh,—the thought of it! Now kiss us all goodnight; we want to sleep. And here—your hands, Jack, and our little prayer." *CHAPTER II* *HOW AUNT LUCRETIA RAN AWAY* There never was a fall like Aunt Lucretia’s when she did fall in love. It is historic at The Home Stretch to this day, and the record is as Aunt Lucretia wrote it to me after she had married Dr. Gottlieb. "Ran away!" exclaimed Eloise, after she had read the letter; "and everybody on the place has been trying to marry them off to each other for twenty years. But of course Aunt Lucretia had to do something different!" "Of course, I knew, Jack," wrote Aunt Lucretia from Dr. Gottlieb’s old home in Germany, where they were spending their honeymoon, "that old Gott,—bless the dear heart of him!—had been loving me all these years. Women folks have a kind of a dog nose for the man that really loves them—they know it by instinct. There are some men who court women naturally, but there are lots of them every sensible woman has to court a little herself. Old Gott was one of these. I knew if I ever married him I’d have to court him myself, although he was crazy about me. But I didn’t love him then; he was so silly and made me so mad the way he did it—always hinting around that I was that great red flower he was trying to find, and writing me silly letters, begging me to kiss the postage stamp when I replied, so he might kiss it also! Of course I was proud of Gott and awfully fond of him. I knew he had a great mind and an international reputation as a botanist, but as a lover, Jack, he was very poor.