Don't misjudge poor Kesiah, Jonathan, she has a good heart at bottom, though she has always been a little soured on account of her disappointment." "Oh, she was cut out for an old maid, one can see that," rejoined Gay, only half interested in the history of his aunt, for he seldom exerted his imagination except under pressure of his desires, "and, by the way, mother, what kind of man was my Uncle Jonathan ?" "The dearest creature, my son, heaven alone knows what his loss meant to me! Such consideration! Such generosity! Such delicacy! He and Kesiah never got on well, and this was the greatest distress to me." "Did you ever hear any queer stories about him?
Was he--well--ah, wild, would you say ?" "Wild?
Jonathan, I am surprised at you! Why, during the twenty years that I knew him he never let fall so much as a single indelicate word in my presence." "I don't mean that exactly--but what about his relations with the women around here ?" She flinched as if his words had struck her a blow.
"Dear Jonathan, your poor uncle would never have asked such a question." Above the mantel there was an oil portrait of the elder Jonathan at the age of three, painted astride the back of an animal that disported the shape of a lion under the outward covering of a lamb.
"Ah, that's just it," commented Gay, while his inquiring look hung on the picture.

After a minute of uncertainty, his curiosity triumphed over his discretion and he put, in an apologetic tone, an equally indelicate question.

"What about old Reuben Merryweather's granddaughter?
Has she been provided for ?" For an instant Mrs.Gay looked at him with shining, reproachful eyes under a loosened curl of fair hair which was threaded with sliver.

Those eyes, very blue, very innocent, seemed saying to him, "Oh, be careful, I am so sensitive.

Remember that I am a poor frail creature, and do not hurt me.