“I am going out to Cleveland next week for goods,” remarked Mrs. Patience, “and I can go out to the Refuge and arrange about Posey.” Miss Silence nodded. “Yes, and you know Cousin Allen Gloin’s wife has a sister in Horsham; she will doubtless know of this Mrs. Hagood.” Posey lifted her head proudly, “I hope you will see everybody who knows me, and ask them all about me, for then you will find that I have told the truth.” “We are not doubting your word,” Miss Silence assured her; “it is on your account as well as ours that we want to learn as much as possible.” “All the same I want you to know that it is true,” she answered. “And—” hesitating a little, “if you know some one in Horsham couldn’t I send a word to Mr. Hagood? He will worry about me, I know he will, and he was always so kind that I wish he could know where I am and how good you are to let me stay. He won’t tell Mrs. Hagood anything about it. I am sure he won’t.” CHAPTER XIV POSEY BECOMES ROSE Thus it was that Posey, who for so long had been drifted at the mercy of adverse currents found herself, for a time at least, in a safe and quiet harbor. Very quickly she fell into the simple household ways; she washed the dainty old china for Mrs. Blossom; she dusted the carefully kept rooms; she pulled bastings and whipped edges for Miss Silence; she ripped braid and wound ribbons for Mrs. Patience, watching her the while as with hat-block in lap her deft fingers “sewed over” a hat or bonnet into a different shape—for at that time this was part of the work of a village milliner; and last but by no means least she listened to Grandmother Sweet’s gentle counsels and gentler admonitions. While in this atmosphere of cheer and kindliness her young heart that had known such scant measure of either, expanded like a flower in the sunshine. From the first time she heard it the name Posey had been anything but pleasing to Grandmother Sweet’s Quaker ears, and the next day after her coming, when she had given as full an account as she could of her varied life, the old lady began to question her. “And now what is thy real name, my child? For surely thy mother never gave thee ‘Posey’ for a life name.” “I don’t know as I have any other,” answered Posey in surprise, for it was something she had never thought of before. “My mother, I can remember, often called me ‘Rose,’ and her ‘little Rose,’ but she called me ‘Posey,’ too; so did my father and the neighbors, and Madam Sharpe, and I always supposed that was all the name I had.” “Thee can depend upon it,” was the old lady’s decided answer, “‘Posey’ was only that foolish custom—a nickname—of which I cannot approve. “And as to thy surname, does thee not know that either? It seems anything but right that thee should continue to bear—especially as it is not thy own, the name of that wicked adventuress.”