Chapter XI

The bloom of opening flowers' unsullied beauty-- Softness and sweetest innocence she wears, And looks like nature in the world's first spring. --ROWE'S "TAMERLANE."

"What a very peculiar hand, papa; so stiff and cramped and old-fashioned," Elsie remarked, as her father laid down a letter he had just been reading.

"Yes. Did you ever hear me speak of Aunt Wealthy Stanhope?"

His glance seemed to direct the question to Rose, who answered, with a look of surprise and curiosity, "No, sir. Who is she?"

"A half-sister of my own mother. She was the daughter of my maternal grandfather by his first wife, my mother was the child of the second, and there were some five or ten years between them. Aunt Wealthy never married, would never live with any of her relatives, but has always kept up a cosey little establishment of her own."

"Do you know her, papa?" asked Elsie, who was listening with eager interest.

"I can hardly say that I do. I saw her once, nearly eighteen years ago, about the time you were born--but I was not capable of appreciating her then; indeed, was so unhappy and irritable as to be hardly in a condition to either make or receive favorable impressions. I now believe her to be a truly good and noble little woman, though decidedly an oddity in some respects. Then I called her a fidgety, fussy old maid."

"And your letter is from her?" Rose said inquiringly.

"Yes; she wants me to pay her a visit, taking Elsie with me, and leaving her there for the summer."

"There, papa! where?"

"Lansdale, Ohio. Should you like to go?"

"Yes, I think I should like to go, papa, if you take me; but whether I should like to stay all summer I could hardly tell till I get there."

"You may read the letter," he said, handing it to her.

"It sounds as though it might be very pleasant, papa," she said, as she laid it down after an attentive perusal.

It spoke of Lansdale as a pretty, healthful village, surrounded by beautiful scenery, and boasting of some excellent society: of two lively young girls, living in the next house to her own, who would be charming companions for Elsie, etc.

"Your remark that your aunt was an oddity in some respects has excited my curiosity," said Rose.

"Ah! and I am to understand that you would like me to gratify it, eh?" returned her husband, smiling. "Her dress and the arrangement of her hair are in a style peculiarly her own (unless she has become more fashionable since I saw her, which is not likely); and she has an odd way of transposing her sentences and the names of those she addresses or introduces, or calling them by some other name suggested by some association with the real one. Miss Bell, for instance,