Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/56

44 in my presence, Benjamin Batters. From what I have heard him say, I believe he was in his sixty-first year, though, latterly, he looked more, and was, at one time, of Little Endell Street, Westminster.’”

“That was where mother lived when she was a girl,” I interposed.

Mr. Paine read on:

Mr. Paine ceased; he looked at us, and we at him.

“That’s a funny letter,” I remarked.

“Funny!” cried Emily. “Pollie, how can you say so? Why, it’s a romance.”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Paine. His voice was a little dry. “It is, perhaps, because it is so like a romance that it seems—odd.”

I had a fancy that he had meant to use another word instead of “odd;” I wondered what it was.

“According to that letter my Uncle Benjamin must have changed a good deal before he died; I never