"Tall. Thin. Rather a wreck."

"Probably my Uncle Thomas. Frightful man. Always trying to roast a
chap, don't, you know. Still, there's one consolation. If it is Uncle
Thomas, they'll have sent the automobile for him. I shouldn't think
he'd ever walked more than a hundred yards in his natural, not at a
stretch. He generally stays with us in the summer. I wonder if he's
bringing Aunt Julia with him. You didn't see her, I suppose, by any
chance? Tall, and talks to beat the band. He married her for her
money," concluded Spennie charitably.

"Isn't she attractive, either?"

"Aunt Julia," said Spennie with feeling, "is the absolute limit. Wait
till you see her. Sort of woman who makes you feel that your hands are
the color of a frightful tomato and the size of a billiard table, if
you know what I mean. By gad, though, you should see her jewels. It's
perfectly beastly the way that woman crams them on. She's got one rope
of pearls which is supposed to have cost forty thousand pounds. Look
out for it to-night at dinner. It's worth seeing."

Jimmy Pitt was distressed to feel distinct symptoms of a revival of
the Old Adam as he listened to these alluring details. It was trying a
reformed man a little high, he could not help thinking with some
indignation, to dangle forty thousand pounds' worth of pearls before
his eyes over the freshly turned sods of the grave of his past. It was
the sort of test which might have shaken the resolution of the oldest
established brand from the burning.