Once seated there, he set his knees close together, stood his black hat upon them, and wretchedly turned the brim up and down.
But supper had cheered Tant Sannie, who found it impossible longer to maintain that decorous silence, and whose heart yearned over the youth.
"I was related to your aunt Selena who died," said Tant Sannie.

"My mother's stepbrother's child was married to her father's brother's stepnephew's niece." "Yes, aunt," said the young man, "I know we were related." "It was her cousin," said Tant Sannie, now fairly on the flow, "who had the cancer cut out of her breast by the other doctor, who was not the right doctor they sent for, but who did it quite as well." "Yes, aunt," said the young man.
"I've heard about it often," said Tant Sannie.

"And he was the son of the old doctor that they say died on Christmas-day, but I don't know if that's true.

People do tell such awful lies.

Why should he die on Christmas-day more than any other day ?" "Yes, aunt, why ?" said the young man meekly.
"Did you ever have the toothache ?" asked Tant Sannie.
"No, aunt." "Well, they say that doctor--not the son of the old doctor that died on Christmas-day, the other that didn't come when he was sent for--he gave such good stuff for the toothache that if you opened the bottle in the room where any one was bad they got better directly.