Again she examined the paper, reading the names aloud: "Mrs. Corbin, Mrs. Moon, Mrs. Tate--Buzzie isn't the brainiest person in the world, but one of the funniest--Mrs. Tazewell, Mrs. Burnham--I like that young woman, she's got sense--Miss Matoaca Brockenborough, Miss Mittie Muncaster, and Miss Amelia Taylor. I'm the fourth spinster. For a place the size of Yorkburg that's an excellent group of women, though they don't speak French or wear Parisian clothes. Mittie Muncaster says she makes all of hers without a pattern, and they look it, but, as women go, they're above the average." She took up another slip of paper and glanced over it: "Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mr. and Mrs. Steele, Mr. James and Miss Puss Jenkins, Mr. Brickhouse and Mrs. Deford, Judge Lynn and myself. They haven't left a leg for Mary Cary to stand on since her talk before the council, and yet, on the whole, I haven't heard as much about it as I expected. That little piece of information concerning her English grand-father was efficacious. That her father was an unknown actor has long been a source of satisfaction to certain Yorkburgers, and to learn that his blood was not only Bohemian but blue, and worse still, distinguished, was hard on them. "Yes"--she tapped the table with the tips of her fingers--"I was sorry it was best to mention Mary's English relations, but it was. As long as people are weighed and measured according to what they come from rather than what they are it is at times necessary to state a few facts of family history. Stock rises or falls according to reports. Some mouths have to be treated and the sort of salve one uses depends upon the sores. Not yet can a person be taken at face value. Ancestor-worship isn't all Chinese. An ill-bred gentleman-born is still welcomed where an ill-born well-bred man is not invited. Queer place, this little planet in which we swing through space, Gibbie Gault, and nothing in it queerer than you. A million or two years from now we may see clearly, approach sense and civilization, and in the mean time you get up and dress yourself so as to be ready for your guests!" Chapter XII THE BARGAIN She held out her hand. "How do you do? Where is Mary this afternoon? Sit down and stop staring at me like that. I'm no Chinese idol. If I choose to put on a mandarin coat and sit on my front porch, whose business is it but mine!" "Nobody's, madam!" John Maxwell bent over and shook Miss Gibbie's hand vigorously. "You are indeed no Chinese idol. But in such gorgeousness you might be twin sister to that fearless lady of long finger-nails and no soul, the Do-wagger Empress of China, as Mrs. McDougal called her. She was a woman of might and a born boss. I understand you are letting the people of this town know you are living here again. I've come to hear about the parties." He drew a chair close to Miss Gibbie's, and took from her lap the turkey-wing fan. "That's a fine coat you've got on. Did you wear that yesterday?"