“Never knew you had a relation in the world,” Paul replied, and Miss Hansford continued: “Well, I have—plenty of ’em somewhere; none very near, though. Roger’s the nearest. His father was my brother John, and I quarrelled with him,—Roger I mean,—because, in spite of all I could say, he would marry Lucy Potter, a pretty little helpless thing, with no sort of get up in her. Her folks lived in Ridgefield same as we did. Respectable enough, but shiftless,—let things go to rack and ruin. The front gate hung on one hinge, the fence lopped over, the blinds swung loose, and for months there was a broken window light in the garret,—sometimes with paper pasted over it and sometimes an old shawl sticking out of it. That’s who the Potters were. Went everywhere and everybody liked ’em, but, my land, how Roger, who wouldn’t drink from a glass some one else had drank from, could marry one of ’em I don’t know. She was just a China doll, and her beauty took him. I guess he’s paid for it. I’ve no doubt her house looks like bedlam, and he so neat and particular! There was some French blood in old Miss Potter ’way back, and her sister, Lucy’s aunt, was on the stage,—an actress!” Miss Hansford whispered the last word as if afraid the furniture in the room would hear and rise in judgment against her. Paul did not seem at all disturbed, and she continued: “Roger and Lucy went to hear her when she was in Boston, and tried to have me go. Think of it! I in such a place! I went with your folks, I know, to see ‘Uncle Tom,’ but that was different. This play the Potter woman was in was about Lady somebody, who put her husband up to kill somebody.” “Lady Macbeth?” Paul suggested, and Miss Hansford replied: “Yes, that’s the one. A blood and thunder play. Why, I’d as soon go to Purgatory as to see it. I’ve never told a living soul before that we had an actress in the family. I’m so ashamed I hope you’ll keep it to yourself. I shouldn’t like to have Elder Atwater’s wife know it. She has never quite got over my going to see ‘Uncle Tom.’” Paul did not share Miss Hansford’s prejudice against theatres and actresses, but he promised that neither Elder Atwater’s wife nor any other elder’s wife should ever hear from him of the disgrace attaching to Miss Hansford because her nephew’s wife’s aunt, dead years ago, had been an actress. Miss Hansford had handed him the picture, saying as she did so: “It’s Roger’s girl. He sent it in a letter. He thinks she looks like me.” “By George, she’s a beauty, if she does; but what’s her name?” Paul said, bending close to the lamp and looking at the word “Elithe” written with very pale ink. “I don’t wonder you ask,” Miss Hansford replied. “Such an outlandish name. I told you her great-grandmother was French, and they called the girl for her and that aunt on the stage. That’s the worst of it. Named for an actress! It’s pronounced _A-l-double e-t-h_.”