Whilst the gentlemen were sitting over their desert, Mr.Garie asked his uncle, if he had not a sister, with whom there was some mystery connected.
"No mystery," replied uncle John.

"Your aunt made a very low marriage, and father cut her off from the family entirely.

It happened when I was very young; she was the eldest of us all; there were four of us, as you know--your father, Bernard, I, and this sister of whom we are speaking.

She has been dead for some years; she married a carpenter whom father employed on the place--a poor white man from New York.

I have heard it said, that he was handsome, but drunken and vicious.