Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
Even if Ethel accepted that ten, he reflected, he would still be a
dollar ahead. But he was sure she would tell him to keep it; and he'd
"jest like to see thet air nabob git a penny back agin."
Meantime Uncle John's wrath, which was always an effervescent quality
with the little gentleman, had changed to wonder when he saw his nieces
approaching with the third red-and-gold book. Louise was leaning against
the rail fence and laughing hysterically, and suddenly a merry smile
appeared and spread over her uncle's round face as he said:
"Did you ever hear of such an audacious swindle in all your born days?"
"What will you do, Uncle?" asked the girl, wiping the tears of merriment
from her eyes. "Have the man arrested?"
"Of course not, my dear. It's worth the money just to learn what talents
the fellow possesses. Tell me, Patsy," he continued, as the other nieces
joined them, "what did you pay for your book?"
"Five dollars. Uncle. He said--"
"Never mind what he said, my dear. It's all right. I wanted it to add to
my collection. So far I've got three 'Lives of the Saints'--and I'm
thankful they're not cats, or there'd be nine lives for me to
accumulate."
CHAPTER X.
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS.
Ethel Thompson came over the next day, as she had promised, and the
sweet-faced, gentle school-mistress won the hearts of Uncle John's three
nieces without an effort. She was the eldest of them all, but her
retired country life had kept her fresh and natural, and Ethel seemed no
more mature than the younger girls except in a certain gravity that
early responsibility had thrust upon her.
Together the four laughing, light-hearted maids wandered through the
pines, where the little school-ma'am showed them many pretty nooks and
mossy banks that the others had not yet discovered. By following an
unsuspected path, they cut across the wooded hills to the waterfall,
where Little Bill Creek made a plunge of twenty feet into a rocky basin
below. In spite of the bubbles, the water here showed clear as crystal,
and the girls admiringly christened it the "Champagne Cup.
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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