“I breakfast sharp at half-past seven,” he said to Edna; “but if you feel inclined, lie as long as you please, though I can’t say but I’d like to see a fresh young face across the table. Maude generally was up.”
“I shall be up too,” Edna said, as she stood a moment in the door looking at her uncle; then, as she remembered all the kindness he had shown to her, there came over her with a rush the hunger she had always felt for something missed in childhood, and without stopping to think, she walked boldly up to the little man, and said, “Uncle Phil, nobody ever kissed me good-night since I can remember; none of my relatives I mean; will you do so?”
Uncle Phil was confounded. It was more than thirty years since he had kissed anybody, and he began to gather up his short coat skirts and hop,—first on one foot, then on the other, and look behind him toward the door in a kind of helpless way, as if meditating flight But Edna stood her ground, and put up her full, red lips so temptingly, that with a hurried “bless me, girl, bless me, I don’t know ’bout this. Yes, yes, I feel very queer and curis,” Uncle Phil submitted, and suffered Edna’s kiss, and as her lips touched his, he clasped both arms about her neck, and kissed her back heartily, while with a trembling voice, he said, “Heaven bless you, my child, my daughter, Louise Overton. I’m a rough old fellow, but I’ll do my duty to you.”
There was a tear on Edna’s cheek, left there by Uncle Phil, and Edna accepted it as the baptism for her new name, and felt more resigned to “Louise Overton,” as she followed Becky upstairs to the north room, where the bright fire was making shadows on the wall, and diffusing a delightful feeling of warmth throughout the apartment
CHAPTER XX.
UP IN THE NORTH ROOM.
“Oh, how pleasant and nice. Am I to sleep here?” Edna asked, as she skipped across the floor, and knelt upon the hearth-rug in front of the fire. “What’s become of that little room? I thought——”
She did not say what she thought, for Becky interrupted her with:
“Oh, dat’s no ’count room; jes’ put folks in thar when they fust comes, then moves ’em up higher, like they does in Scripter. Marster’s mighty quare.”
“How long have you lived with him?” Edna asked, and Becky replied: