“Which side of the house are you a relative of?” he asked.
“The inside,” returned Dorothy. “I keep house here.”
“You don’t say so! What’s become of Sally? Uncle shoo her off the lot?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” answered Dorothy, with a fruitless effort to appear matronly and dignified. “If by ‘uncle’ you mean Uncle Ebeneezer, he’s dead.”
“You don’t tell me! Reaped at last, after all this delay! Then how did you come here?”
“By train,” responded Dorothy, enjoying the situation to the utmost. “Uncle Ebeneezer left the house and furniture to my husband.”
The young man sank into a chair and wiped the traces of deep emotion from his ruddy face. “Hully Gee!” he said, when he recovered speech. “I suppose that’s French for ‘Dick, chase yourself.’”
“Perhaps not,” suggested Mrs. Carr, strangely loath to have this breezy individual take his departure. “You might tell me who you are; don’t you think so?”
“Not a bad notion at all. I’m the Dick of the firm of ‘Tom, Dick, and Harry,’ you’ve doubtless heard about from your childhood. My other name is Chester, but few know it. I’m merely ‘Dick’ to everybody, yourself included, I trust,” he added with an elaborate bow. “If you will sit down, and make yourself comfortable, I will now unfold to you the sad story of my life.
“I was born of poor but honest parents about twenty-three years ago, according to the last official census. They brought me up until I reached the ripe age of twelve, then got tired of their job and went to heaven. Since then I’ve brought myself up. I’ve just taught a college all it can learn from me, and been put out. Prexy confided to me that I wasn’t going to graduate, so I shook the classic dust from my weary feet and fled hither as to a harbour of refuge. I’ve always spent my Summers with Uncle Ebeneezer, because it was cheap for me and good for him, but I can’t undertake to follow him up this Summer, not knowing exactly where he is, and not caring for a warm climate anyway.”