“You are already Louise,” he said, as Edna questioned the right in the matter. “And inasmuch as I adopt you for my daughter, it is right and proper that you take my name, is it not?”
“Perhaps so,” Edna replied faintly; “but I shall have to tell Aunt Jerry, and Mr. Heyford too. I promised him I would write as soon as I was located in business.”
To this, Uncle Phil did not object, provided Jack Heyford kept his own counsel, as Edna was sure he would. With regard to Miss Pepper, he made no remonstrance. He did not seem to fear her, but surprised Edna with the question,
“What sort of a looking craft is this Pepper woman?”
Edna, who felt that she might have told too much that was prejudicial to her aunt, gladly seized the opportunity to make amends by praising her personal appearance.
“Aunt Jerry dresses so queerly that one can hardly tell how she does look,” she said, “but if she only wore clothes like other people, I think she’d be real handsome for her age. She was pretty once, I’m sure, for she has a nice, fair complexion now, and her neck and arms are plumper and whiter than a Mrs. Fosbook’s, whom I saw barenecked and short-sleeved at a sociable in Canandaigua. Her hair is soft and wavy, and she has so much of it, too, but will twist it into such a hard knot always, when she might make such a lovely waterfall.”
“Do you mean those things that hang down your back like a work-bag?” Uncle Phil asked, laughing louder and longer than Edna thought the occasion warranted, especially as he did not know Miss Pepper, and how out of place a waterfall would be upon her.
“What of her eyes?” he asked, and Edna replied—“bright and black as jet beads.”
“And snap like a snap-dragon, I’ll bet,” Uncle Phil rejoined, adding, after a moment, “I’d really like to see this kinswoman of yours. Tell her so when you write, and say she’s welcome to bed and board whenever she chooses to come, and there’s an Episcopal meeting-house over to Millville, and she can have old Bobtail every saint’s day in the calendar.”
There was a perfect shower of snuff after this, and then Uncle Phil questioned Edna as to what she thought she could teach, and how much she expected to get for each scholar; then he summoned Becky and ordered cider, and apples, and fried cakes, and butternuts, and made Edna try them all, and told her about her grandmother Louise when she was a girl, and then, precisely as the clock pointed to nine, called Becky again, and bade her show Miss Overton to her room.