“No ’tain’t. He wouldn’t of let us know if there had been a hundred babies. He’d be more likely to keep whist, for fear we’d lay some claim to her, and we as good as he any day, if he wasn’t quite so rich. Why, there never was a likelier gal than your mother, even when she closed boots for a livin’; and there ain’t a grander lady now in the land than she is.” “I don’t know about the grand,” said Phil, “but I know there is not a better woman in the world than my mother, or a handsomer either, when she’s dressed in her velvet, and laces, and diamonds. I wish you could see her once.” “I wish to gracious I could,” returned Mrs. Ferguson. “Why don’t she never put on her best clothes here and let us see ’em once, and not allus wear them plain black silks, and browns, and grays?” “Merrivale is hardly the place for velvets and diamonds,” said Phil. “There is seldom any occasion for them, and mother does not think it good taste to make a display.” “No, I s’pose not,” grandma replied; “but mabby Rennet will take me with her to Washington, or Saratoga, or the sea-side, and then I can see it all. And they needn’t be ashamed of me nuther. There’s my purple _morey_, and upon a pinch I can have another new silk. Rennet will find her granny has clothes!” Phil did not usually wince at anything his grandmother said, but now a cold sweat broke out a over him as he thought of her at the sea-side arrayed in her _purple morey_, which made her look fatter and coarser than ever, with the bright pink ribbons or blue feather in her cap. What would Reinette say to such a figure, and what would Reinette think of her any way? He was accustomed to her; he knew all the good there was in her; but Reinette, with her French ideas, was different, and he found himself seeing with Reinette’s eyes and hearing with Reinette’s ears, and blushing with shame for the good old lady, who went on talking about her new granddaughter, whom she sometimes called _Rennet_, and sometimes _Runnet_, but never by her right name. At last Phil could bear it no longer, and said: “Grandma, isn’t it just as easy to say Reinette as Rennet? Do you know what a rennet is?” “No, what is it?” she asked, and he replied: “It is what farmers put in milk to make cheese curd.” “Bless the boy!” and Mrs. Ferguson laughed till the tears rolled down her fat cheeks. “Bless the boy, that’s _runnet_; as if I didn’t know _runnet_—I, that lived with a farmer three summers, and made cheese every day.” “No matter; it is spelled _rennet_, and I do not believe my cousin would care to be called that. We want to please her, you know,” said Phil, and his grandmother replied: “To be sure we do, and we must make quite a time when she fust lands here. Your mother and the gals will come home, of course.”