“I was born in Bleecker street, New York, when that was the place where to be born,” Roy replied; and with the ice thus broken, the two grew very sociable, and Roy made himself master of the mysteries of soap-making, and began to feel a deep interest in this strange woman, who made no movement toward the house until her soap was done, and the brands carefully taken from under the kettle. Then she invited him into her kitchen, and disappearing in the direction of her bedroom, emerged therefrom in a few moments arrayed in her purple calico and white apron, which for several days she had worn in expectation of his coming. Aunt Jerry was something of a puzzle to Roy. Regarding her simply as an ordinary stranger, she amused and interested him, but when he thought of her as Edna’s aunt, and remembered the first letter received from her, he winced a little, and wondered if her niece was like her. They spoke of Edna at once, and Roy told why he had come, and asked if Miss Pepper would give him her niece’s address. But Aunt Jerry was firm as a rock. “She never had told a lie since she joined the church,” she said, “and she did not believe she should commence at this late day, with one foot in the grave. She promised Edna not to tell, and she shouldn’t. The girl was doing well, and was more of a woman than she had ever ’sposed she could be. She has paid a good share of her debts,” she continued, “leastwise she’s paid nearly all she owes me; but if you think me mean enough to keep it,—and from what you wrote me once about a receipt I take it you do,—you are greatly mistaken. I’ve put every dollar of the four hundred in the Savings Bank, and as much more with it, in Edna’s name; and when she’s twenty-one, or if she marries before that time, I intend to give it to her. Let them that’s richer do better if they will.” She jerked out the last words with a side motion at Roy, who took her meaning but said nothing of his own intentions with regard to Edna, further than his wish to find her and take her to Leighton Place. But he might as well have talked to a stone, for any effect his words produced on Aunt Jerusha. “When Edna says I may tell, I will, and not before. I was harsh and unreasonable with her when she was young, perhaps, but I’ll do my duty now,” she said; then turning rather fiercely toward Roy, she continued: “My advice is that you let Edna alone, if you don’t want to make more trouble for that mother of yours, who thinks her boy _stooped_. If I do say it that shouldn’t, there’s something mighty takin’ about Edna, and every boy in these parts was bewitched after her before she was knee-high to a grasshopper. She ain’t much more than that now, and she’s a wonderful pretty girl, such as a chap like you would be sure to fancy. How old be you?”