“I was just thinking of doing the same by you, for only a wee little creature would want a tall horse to carry her grandly and high,” said Mr. Beresford, still studying the gilt-edged sheet of note paper, where there lingered a faint delicate perfume which miles of travel by land and sea had not quite destroyed. “_Ah bien, nous verrons_,” said Phil: then, bidding good-night to his friend, he walked away humming softly an old French song, of which Mr. Beresford caught the words, “_Ma petite reine_.” “Confound the boy,” he said to himself. “He’s better up in French than I am, and that will never do.” Arrived at his rooms, Arthur Beresford’s first act after putting Reinette’s letter carefully away, was to hunt up his long-neglected Ollendorf, over which he pondered for two hours or more, with only this result, that his head was full of all sorts of useless and nonsensical phrases, and that even in his dreams he kept repeating over and over again, “_Avez vous mon chapeau? Oui, monsieur, je l’ai._” CHAPTER V. PHIL INTERVIEWS HIS GRANDMOTHER. After leaving Mr. Beresford Phil concluded, before going home, to call on his grandmother and ask if she had ever heard of a granddaughter in France. The house of grandma Ferguson, as she was now universally called, was the same low, old-fashioned brown building under the poplar trees where she had sold gingerbread and beer in the days when Paul Rossiter and Fred Hetherton came wooing her two daughters, Mary and Margaret. In her youth grandma Ferguson had been a tall, slender, well-formed girl, with a face which always won a second glance from every one who saw it. In fact, it was her pretty face which attracted honest John Ferguson when he was looking for some one to be a mother to his little girl. Margaret Martin was her real name, but everybody called her Peggy, and everybody liked her, she was so thoroughly kind-hearted and good-natured, and ready to sacrifice herself in every and any cause. But her family was against her. Her father was coarse and low, and a drunkard, and her brothers were coarser and lower still, and the most notorious fighters in town, while her mother was a shiftless, gossipy, jealous woman, who would rather receive charity at any time than work, and who always grumbled at the charity when given. But against Peggy’s reputation not a whisper had ever been breathed. She was loud-talking, boisterous, and ignorant, and a Martin but perfectly honest, straightforward, and trusty, and from the day John Ferguson, the thrifty stonemason took her to his home to look after his house and child her fortune was made, for in less than six months she became his wife. As Mrs. John Ferguson she was somewhat different from Peggy Martin, and tried, not without success, to lower her voice and soften her manners; but her frightful grammar remained unchanged, and her slang was noted for its originality and force.