“That that shabby old man is any relation of ours?”
“I don’t know with certainty,” answered his mother. “He says he is, but I shouldn’t have known him.”
“Did you have any uncle in Illinois?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Mrs. Ross admitted, reluctantly.
“You always said you were of a high family,” said Philip, reproachfully.
Mrs. Ross blushed, for she did not like to admit that her pretensions to both were baseless. She was not willing to admit it now, even to Philip.
“It is true,” she replied, in some embarrassment; “but there’s always a black sheep in every flock.”
Poor Obed! To be called a black sheep—a hard-working, steady-going man as he had been all his life.
“But my mother’s brother, Obed, strange to say, was always rustic and uncouth, and so he was sent out to Illinois to be a farmer. We thought that the best place for him—that he would live and die there; but now, in the most vexatious manner in the world, he turns up here.”
“He isn’t going to stay here, is he?” asked Philip, in dismay.