“Aunt Peace,” asked the girl, softly, “have you forgotten that we have company?”
Dispelled by the voice, the gracious phantoms of Memory vanished. There was a little silence, then the old lady smiled. “No, dearie,” she said, “indeed I haven’t. It is too rare a blessing for me to forget.”
“Please don’t call us ‘company,’” put in the other woman, quickly, “because we’re not.”
“‘Company,’” observed the young man on the opposite side of the hearth, “is extremely good under the circumstances. Somebody nearly breaks down your front door on a rainy afternoon, and when you rush out to save the place from ruin, you discover two dripping tramps on your steps. Stranded on an island in the road is a waggon containing their trunks, from which place of refuge they recently swam to your door. ‘How do you do, Aunt Peace?’ says mother; ‘we’ve come to live with you from this time on to the finish.’ On behalf of this committee, ladies, I thank you, from my heart, for calling us ‘company.’”
Laughing, he rose and made an exaggerated courtesy. “Lynn! Lynn!” expostulated his mother. “Is it possible that after all my explanations you don’t understand? Why, I wrote more than two weeks ago, asking her to let us know if she didn’t want us. Silence always gives consent, and so we came.”
“Yes, we came all right,” continued the boy, cheerfully, “and, as everybody knows, we’re here now, but isn’t it just like a woman? Upon my word, I think they’re queer—the whole tribe.”
“Having thus spoken,” remarked the girl, “you might tell us how a man would have managed it.”
“Very easily. A man would have called in his stenographer—no, he wouldn’t, either, because it was a personal letter. He would have made an excavation into his desk and found the proper stationery, and would have put in a new pen. ‘My dear Aunt Peace,’ he would have said, ‘you mustn’t think I’ve forgotten you because I haven’t written for such a long time. If I had written every time I had wanted to, or had thought of you, actually, you’d have been bored to death with me. I have a kid who thinks he is going to be a fiddler, and we have decided to come and live with you while he finds out, as we understand that Herr Franz Kaufmann, who is not unknown to fame, lives in your village. Will you please let us know? If you can’t take us, or don’t want to, here’s a postage stamp, and no hard feelings on either side.’”
“Just what I said,” explained Mrs. Irving, “though my language wasn’t quite like yours.”
The old lady smiled again. “My dears,” she began, “let us cease this unprofitable discussion. It is all because we are so far out of the beaten track that we seldom go to the post-office. I am sure the letter is there now.”