"Zenobia isn't in yet," says she. "We will wait dinner awhile for her."
Then chunks of silence from Martha, which ain't usual. At seven o'clock we gives it up and sits down alone. We hadn't finished our soup when this telegram comes. First off I thought Martha was goin' to choke or blow a cylinder head, I didn't know which. Then she takes to sobbin' into the consommé, and fin'lly she shoves the message over to me.
"Wh-a-at?" I gasps. "Eloped, have they?"
"I—I knew they would," says Martha, "just as soon as I heard he'd been here. He—he always wanted her to do it."
"Always?" says I. "Why, I thought he hadn't seen her for forty years or so. How could that be?"
"We-we-well," sobs Martha, "I—I stopped them once. And she engaged to the Rev. Mr. Preble at the time! It was scandalous! Such a wild, reckless fellow Kyrle Ballard was too."
"Wh-e-ew!" I whistles. "That was goin' some for Zenobia, wasn't it? How near did they come to doin' the slope?"
"She—she was actually stealing out to meet him, her things all on," says Martha, "when—when I woke up and found her. I made her come back by threatening to call Mother. Engaged for two years, she and Mr. Preble had been, and the wedding day all set. He'd just got a nice church too, his first. I saved her that time; but now——" Martha relapses into the sob act.
"The giddy young things!" says I. "Gone off on a honeymoon trip too! Say, that ain't such slow work, is it? Gettin' there a little late, maybe; but if there ever was a pair of silver sixties meant to be mated up, I guess it's them. Well, well! I stand to lose a near-aunt by the deal; but they get my blessin', anyway."
As for Aunt Martha, she keeps right on thinnin' out the soup.