Margery was a success in Merrivale as a dressmaker, at least. Mrs. Lydia had done very well, it is true. Her work was always neatly finished and her prices satisfactory, but she never went farther from home than Springfield or Worcester, so that there was a sameness and stiffness in her styles wholly unlike the beautiful garments which came from Margery’s skillful hands, no two of which were alike, and each one of which seemed prettier and newer than its predecessor, so that in less than two weeks her rooms were full of work, and her three girls busy from morning till night, and she had even proposed to Miss Anna to help her a few hours each day during the busy season. But Anna spurned the proposition with contempt, saying her days of working for people and being snubbed by them on account of it were over. When Queenie heard of this she laughed merrily, and went herself into Margery’s workshop and trimmed Hattie Granger’s wedding-dress with her own hands and promised to make every stitch of Anna’s should she succeed in capturing the major, as she seemed likely to do; but Anna answered that her wedding-dress, if she ever had one, would not be made in the country, and so that point was settled. From the first Margery’s great beauty attracted unusual attention but upon no one did it produce so great an effect as upon Grandma Ferguson, who first saw the girl the Sunday after her arrival in Merrivale. Reinette had told the sexton to give Miss and Mrs. La Rue a seat with her in the Hetherton pew, describing the two ladies to him so there could be no mistaking them. But Margery came alone, and whether it was that the old sexton’s mind was intent upon a short woman in black, or whether something about Margery herself carried him back to the Sundays of long ago, when a girlish figure used to glide up the aisle to John Ferguson’s pew, he made a mistake and Grandma Ferguson had just settled herself on her cushion and adjusted her wide skirts about her, when a rustling sound caught her ear, and turning her head she saw a face which made her start suddenly with a great throb of something like fear as a tall young girl, simply but elegantly attired in black silk and white chip bonnet, with a wreath of lilacs around it, took a seat beside her. Mrs. Rossiter had seen something in the French girl’s face which puzzled and bewildered her. And grandma saw it, too, and defined it at once, and drew a long breath as she gazed at the face so like the face of her Margaret dead over the sea. Who was she, grandma asked herself and forgot to say her prayers or listen to the sermon, as she wondered and watched. Others had seen only a likeness to Margaret Ferguson, but the mother who could never forget saw more than that; she saw her dead child repeated in this beautiful young girl, who grew restless and nervous under the scrutiny of the eyes she knew were fastened so constantly upon her, and was glad when the sermon was over and she could thus escape them.