"Gee!" says I. "But this raisin' a fam'ly tree comes high, don't it? Besides, I'd have to get Mother Leary's O. K. on you first, you know." "Naturally," says he. "And any time within the next day or so will answer. Suppose I drop around again, or look you up at your quarters?" "Better make it at the house," says I. "Here's the street number. Some evenin' after seven-thirty. I--I'll be thinkin' things over." And as I watches him swing jaunty through the door I remarks under my breath to nobody in partic'lar: "Uncle Bill, eh? My Uncle Bill! Well, well!" You can be sure too that my first move is to sound Mother Leary. She says he's the one, all right, and I gathers that she gave him the tongue-lashin' she'd been savin' up all these years. But I don't stop for details. If I've really had an uncle wished on me, it's up to me to make the best of it, or find out the worst. But somehow I ain't so chesty about havin' dug up a relation. I don't brag about it to Martha when I go home. In fact, Martha has fam'ly troubles of her own about now, you remember. I finds her weepy-eyed and solemn. "They've been gone more than a week," says she, "Zenobia and that reckless Kyrle Ballard. Pretty soon they will be coming back, and then----" "Well, what then?" says I. "I've been packing up to-day," says she, swabbin' off a stray tear from the side of her nose. "I have engaged rooms at the Lady Louise. I suppose you will be leaving too." "Me?" says I. It hadn't struck me that Aunt Zenobia's getting married was goin' to throw us all out on the street. But Aunt Martha had it doped diff'rent. "Stay in the same house with that man?" says she. "Not I! And I am quite sure he will not want either of us around when he comes back here as Zenobia's husband." "If that's the case," says I, "it won't take me long to clear out; but I guess I'll wait until I get the hint direct. You'd better wait too." Martha'd made up her mind, though. She says she'd go right then if it wa'n't for leavin' the servants alone in the house; but the very minute Sister Zenobia arrives she means to beat it. And sure enough next day she has her trunk brought down into the front hall and begins wearin' her bonnet around the house. It's a little weird to see her pokin' about dressed that way, and her wraps and rubbers laid out handy, as if she belonged to a volunteer hose comp'ny. It was after the second day of this watchful waitin', and we're sittin' down to a six-forty-five dinner, when a big racket breaks loose out front. The bell rings four times rapid, Lizzie the maid almost breaks her neck gettin' to the door, and in breezes the runaway pair with all their baggage, chucklin' and chatterin' like a couple of kids. Some stunnin' Aunt Zenobia looks, for all her gray hair; and Mr. Ballard, in his Scotch tweed suit and with his ruddy cheeks, don't look a day over fifty. They're giggling merry over some remark of Lizzie's, and Zenobia calls in through the draperies.