Thus delicately proclaiming Miss Sophia to be a personage whom it was an honor as well as an advantage to know, Miss Judy went indoors to ask, with the usual elaborate, punctilious ceremony, if she would be so kind as to take the trouble to come out to the front gate, where the doctor was waiting to consult her in an important matter; and where it would give herself the greatest pleasure to present old lady Gordon's grandson--who was waiting with the doctor,--provided, of course, that the introduction would be entirely agreeable to Miss Sophia. There were excellent reasons why Miss Judy thus begged Miss Sophia to come out instead of inviting the gentlemen to come in, but neither of the sisters then or ever spoke of these, nor of any other merely sordid things. It took Miss Judy some time, however, to make the request of Miss Sophia as politely as she fondly considered her due; and although it did not take Miss Sophia long to say "Just so, sister Judy," with all the accustomed promptness and decision, several minutes necessarily elapsed before she was really ready to appear. There was the getting up from, and the getting out of, her low arm-chair, always a difficult, tedious process; and there was the further time required for reaching up the chimney to get a bit of soot; and for fetching the heavy footstool clear across the big room to stand upon, in order to see in the mirror. Yet all this must be done ere she could go out. The sun was shining too brilliantly for even Miss Sophia to venture into the broad daylight without taking more than the usual precaution. Even she could not think of going out after having applied the soot haphazard, as she sometimes did in emergencies. But, fortunately, time was no consideration in Oldfield; and Miss Sophia was at last safely descended from the footstool and fully prepared to face the daylight and also the strange young gentleman from Boston.