"Uncle Peter," I said, as I stepped out in front of him suddenly,
"please, Uncle Peter, won't you come in and talk to me?"
"Hey? Evelina?"
"Yes, Uncle Peter, it's Evelina," and I hesitated with terror at the
snap in his dear old eyes, back under their white brows. Then I let my
eyes uncover my heart full of the elixir I had prepared for him, and
offered him as much as he could drink.
"I'm lonely," I said, with a little catch in my voice.
"Lonely--hey?" he grumbled, but his feet hesitated opposite my gate.
In about two and a half minutes I had him seated in a cushioned rocker
on the south side of the porch. Jasper had given us both a mint julep,
and Uncle Peter was much Jess thirsty than he had been for a long time.
Aunt Augusta is as temperate in all things as a steel ramrod.
"You see, Uncle Peter, I needed you so that I just had to kidnap you," I
said to him, as he wiped his lips with a pocket-handkerchief, as stiffly
starched as was his wife herself.
"Why didn't you go over and live in James's hennery--live with James--hey?"
he snapped, with the precision of a pistol cap.
To be just, I suppose Aunt Augusta's adamant disposition accounts, to
some extent, for Uncle Peter's explosive way of thinking and speaking. A
husband would have to knock Aunt Augusta's nature down to make any
impression whatever on it. Uncle Peter always has the air of firing an
idea and then ducking his head to avoid the return shot.
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