35.

"You may be right", agreed Mr. Brown. "The old gal might not be as stupid as we think and is trying to make us squirr". He grinned. "It isn't likely that Butch would stand for being dressed as a girl all this time even for us. I have a hunch all this is a hoax and that the best thing to do is to pretend to play along with the gag."

Butch's letters during the succeeding months gave them

a merry whirl of parties and dates with confiding notes about his supposed admirers. Then came the wedding announce- ment accompanied by a note from Butch--

"My darlings: I can hardly wait until you meet my hus- band. I hope you will approve. Conrad and I are going to the northwest for our honeymoon and will stop over for a two weeks visit on the way back."

Mr. Brown slapped his sides hilariously, "that Aunt Marian is certainly a card, she ought to be a gag writer for the movies". Mrs. Brown's laughte. was a little more hysterical, "how wonderful it will be to have our boy back with us again-I do hope Aunt Marian is really sending him home this time."

"And whom did you wish to see", asked Mr. Brown of the two strangers on his porch? To his confusion the fer- inine member of the couple rushed forward, grabbed him about the neck and began kissing him.

"Oh Daddy, Daddy darling, dont you know me she squeale ?"

Mr. Brown gasped stupidly-the pretty young girl on his porch bore a startling resemblance to the Hrs. Brown of a couple of decades ago, but he had no daughter. Then came full recognition-it was Butch still masquerading. But what a change from the awkward facsimile of a girl that had left with Aunt Marian! Now there was nothing at all to indicate his being a male-smartly dressed in a powder blue suit with a perky hat perched on top of a swirl of curls. It was the curvaceous figure with the nipped in waist and swelling