* * * * * *
"What's the matter now, Alene, that you pucker your brows over that ponderous tome?"
It was after supper, and Uncle Fred, seated in an easy chair beside the reading table in the library, was lazily puffing a pipe.
A stand near by held a large dictionary over whose pages Alene's head was bent.
Glancing up with a puzzled expression, she said: "I don't quite understand; this book says it means 'plain,' and I'm sure lots of children are quite ugly long before they are that age, and I don't think the girls are plain—Laura has lovely eyes and I never heard I was. Am I ugly, Uncle?"
"Well, one wouldn't pick you out in a crowd when all the lights were out, for a fright—"
"Oh, Uncle Fred, do be sober a minute!"
"Alene, I'm ashamed of you to hint that your guardian is ever anything else!"
"I mean grave!"
"A 'most potent, reverend and grave' old fellow am I!"