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looked very pale and plain in her black dress; the purple shadows left by weeping made her large eyes look too large and hollow. She was desperately afraid, and she knew it—but she would not let the Murrays see it. She held up her head and faced the ordeal before her gallantly.
    â€œThis,” said Ellen, turning her around by the shoulder, “is your Uncle Wallace.”
    Emily shuddered and put out a cold hand. She did not like Uncle Wallace—she knew that at once—he was black and grim and ugly, with frowning, bristly brows and a stern, unpitying mouth. He had big pouches under his eyes, and carefully-trimmed black side-whiskers. Emily decided then and there that she did not admire side-whiskers.
    â€œHow do you do, Emily?” he said coldly—and just as coldly he bent forward and kissed her cheek.
    A sudden wave of indignation swept over Emily’s soul. How dared he kiss her—he had hated her father and disowned her mother! She would have none of his kisses! Flash-quick, she snatched her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her outraged cheek.
    â€œWell— well !” exclaimed a disagreeable voice from the other side of the room.
    Uncle Wallace looked as if he would like to say a great many things but couldn’t think of them. Ellen, with a grunt of despair, propelled Emily to the next sitter.
    â€œYour Aunt Eva,” she said.
    Aunt Eva was sitting huddled up in a shawl. She had the fretful face of the imaginary invalid. She shook hands with Emily and said nothing. Neither did Emily.
    â€œYour Uncle Oliver,” announced Ellen.
    Emily rather liked Uncle Oliver’s appearance. He was big and fat and rosy and jolly-looking. She thought she would not mind so much if he kissed her, in spite of his bristly white mustache. But Uncle Oliver had learned Uncle Wallace’s lesson.
    â€œI’ll give you a quarter for a kiss,” he whispered genially. A joke was Uncle Oliver’s idea of being kind and sympathetic, but Emily did not know this, and resented it.
    â€œI don’t sell my kisses,” she said, lifting her head as haughtily as any Murray of them all could do.
    Uncle Oliver chuckled and seemed infinitely amused and not a bit offended. But Emily heard a sniff across the room.
    Aunt Addie was next. She was as fat and rosy and jolly-looking as her husband and she gave Emily’s cold hand a nice, gentle squeeze.
    â€œHow are you, dear?” she said.
    That “dear” touched Emily and thawed her a trifle. But the next in turn froze her up instantly again. It was Aunt Ruth—Emily knew it was Aunt Ruth before Ellen said so, and she knew it was Aunt Ruth who had “well—welled” and sniffed. She knew the cold, gray eyes, the prim, dull brown hair, the short, stout figure, the thin, pinched, merciless mouth.
    Aunt Ruth held out the tips of her fingers, but Emily did not take them.
    â€œShake hands with your Aunt,” said Ellen in an angry whisper.
    â€œShe does not want to shake hands with me,” said Emily, distinctly, “and so I am not going to do it.”
    Aunt Ruth folded her scorned hands back on her black silk lap.
    â€œYou are a very ill-bred child,” she said. “But of course it was only what was to be expected.”
    Emily felt a sudden compunction. Had she cast a reflection on her father by her behavior? Perhaps after all she should have shaken hands with Aunt Ruth. But it was too late now—Ellen had already jerked her on.
    â€œThis is your Cousin, Mr. James Murray,” said Ellen, in the disgusted tone of one who gives up something as a bad job and is only anxious to be done with it.
    â€œCousin Jimmy—Cousin Jimmy,” said that individual. Emily looked steadily at him, and liked him at once without any reservations.
    He had a little, rosy, elfish face with a forked gray beard; his hair curled over his head in a most un-Murray-like mop of glossy brown; and his large, brown eyes