eyes, "though it is hard to be accused of a temper before my own nephew.
But I know I am a burden, and I have overstayed my welcome. Let me go."

"Why, Aunt Griselda?" remonstrated Miss Chris in hurt tones. "You know I
didn't accuse you of anything. I only meant that you would feel better
if you didn't drink so much tea and ate more meat--"

"I am not too old to take a hint," replied Aunt Griselda. "I haven't
reached my dotage yet, and I can see when I am a burden. Here, Congo,
you may put my teapot away."

"O Lord!" gasped the general tragically; and rising to the occasion, he
said hurriedly: "By the way, Chris, they told me at the post-office
to-day that old Dr. Smith was dead. It was only last week that I met him
on his way to town with his niece's daughter, and he told me that he had
never been in better health in his life."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Chris, holding a large spoonful of
raspberries poised above the dish to which she was helping. "Why, old
Dr. Smith attended me forty years ago when I had measles. I remember he
made me lie in bed with blankets over me, though it was August, and he
wouldn't let me drink anything except hot flax-seed tea. They say all
that has been changed in this generation--"

"Leave me plenty of room for cream, Aunt Chris," broke in Bernard, with
an anxious eye on Miss Chris's absent-minded manipulations. She reached
for the round, old silver pitcher, and poured the yellow cream on the
sugared berries without pausing in her soft, monotonous flow of words.

"But even in those days Dr. Smith was behind the times, and he has been