Part 9 (1/2)

If the unannounced visit of Uncle Obed may be thought to need an excuse, it can easily be found. For years, when Mrs. Ross was a girl, she and her mother were mainly supported by the now despised uncle, without whom they might have become dependent upon charity.

It was not a time that Mrs. Ross, in her present luxury, liked to think about, and for years she had not communicated with the uncle to whom she owed so much.

Full of charity himself, he was unconscious of her lack of grat.i.tude, and supposed that her failure to write was owing to lack of time. He had come in good faith, when bereft of his daughter, to renew acquaintance with his niece, never dreaming how unwelcome he would be. Philip's rudeness impressed him unpleasantly, but, then, the boy had never seen him before, and that was some excuse.

CHAPTER VII

AN UNWELCOME GUEST

”I don't believe that old tramp's my great-uncle,” said Philip Ross to himself, but he felt uneasy, nevertheless.

It hurt his pride to think that he should have such a shabby relation, and he resolved to ascertain by inquiry from his mother whether there were any grounds for the old man's claim.

He came into the house just after Uncle Obed had been shown upstairs by the servant, not to the spare room, but to a small, inconvenient bedroom on the third floor, next to the one occupied by the two servants.

”Mother,” asked Philip, ”is it really true?”

”Is what really true?”

”That that shabby old man is any relation of ours?”

”I don't know with certainty,” answered his mother. ”He says he is, but I shouldn't have known him.”

”Did you have any uncle in Illinois?”

”Yes, I believe so,” Mrs. Ross admitted, reluctantly.

”You always said you were of a high family,” said Philip, reproachfully.

Mrs. Ross blushed, for she did not like to admit that her pretensions to both were baseless. She was not willing to admit it now, even to Philip.

”It is true,” she replied, in some embarra.s.sment; ”but there's always a black sheep in every flock.”

Poor Obed! To be called a black sheep--a hard-working, steady-going man as he had been all his life.

”But my mother's brother, Obed, strange to say, was always rustic and uncouth, and so he was sent out to Illinois to be a farmer. We thought that the best place for him--that he would live and die there; but now, in the most vexatious manner in the world, he turns up here.”

”He isn't going to stay here, is he?” asked Philip, in dismay.

”No; we must get rid of him some way. I must say it was a very cool proceeding to come here without an invitation, expecting us to support him.”

This was a gratuitous a.s.sumption on the part of Mrs. Ross.

”I suppose he's very poor. He doesn't look as if he had a cent. I presume he is dest.i.tute, and expects us to take care of him.”

”You'd better send him packing, mother.”

”I suppose we shall have to do something for him,” said Mrs. Ross, in a tone of disgust. ”I shall advise your father to buy a ticket for him, and send him back to Illinois.”