The man looked bewildered, and repeated, "Uncle John?"
"Yes, Uncle John and Aunt Kate. I'm Ally, and Uncle John telegraphed that he would meet me at the five-o'clock train, and he wasn't there, and I came up all alone. Where are they? In the parlor?" and Ally stepped in over the threshold.
"I guess there's some mistake," said the man; "I guess your uncle John—"
"No, there wasn't any mistake, for he telegraphed to Uncle Tom. He must have forgotten."
"But your uncle doesn't—"
"What is it, James? What is wanted?" interrupted some one here. The "some one" was a big, tall gentleman coming down the stairs, whom Ally, as she looked up in the rather confusing half light of the lower hall, at once took for her uncle, and rushing forward she ran up to meet him, crying,—
"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John! I was so scared not to find you at the station, and I came up here all alone on the street car!"
But in the very next instant she started back and gasped: "But—but it isn't—you're not—you're not Uncle John! Where is he, oh, where is he?"
"You've made a mistake, my little girl!" exclaimed the gentleman,—"a mistake in the house. This isn't your uncle John's, but—"
"Not Uncle John's? Why—why—this is 999!" interrupted Ally, tremulously.