Anna Ferguson had been to boarding-school two or three quarters, and had botanies, and physiologies, and algebras laid away on the book-shelf at home; but for all that she was a very ignorant young lady, and guiltless of any knowledge of the Louvre or Murillo and Claude Lorraine. But she liked to appear learned, and had a way of pretending to know many things which she did not know; and now she hastened to cover her mistake by pretending to examine the pictures more closely, and saying, “Oh, yes, I see; lovely, aren’t they? and so well done! Why, Mr. Beresford, you here!” and she turned suddenly toward the door, which Arthur Beresford was just entering. He was much better, and had ridden over to Hetherton Place with a friend who was going a few miles farther, and, hearing voices up stairs, had come at once to Reinette’s room, where he found Phil and Anna. Just then a workman called Phil away, and Mr. Beresford was left alone with Anna, who was even better pleased to be with him than with her cousin, and who assumed her prettiest, most coquettish manners in order to attract the grave lawyer, whose cue she at once followed, praising the arrangement of the room generally, and finally calling his attention to the pictures, one of which, she said, was drawn by Mr. Lorraine, and the other by—she could not quite remember whom, but—the oil painting was the portrait of Murillo, whose hands and hair she thought so lovely. That came from _Loo_, in France, but the engravings were from somewhere in Kentucky—Frankfort, she believed. Mr. Beresford was disgusted, as he always was with Anna, but did not try to enlighten her, and, as Phil soon joined them, they went over the rest of the house together. Only the upper and lower halls, the dining-room, the library, Mr. Hetherton’s and Reinette’s bedchambers, the kitchen and servants’ rooms had been renovated, and these were all in comfortable living order, with new matting on the floors, fresh paint and whitewash everywhere, and furniture enough to make it seem homelike and cozy. But it was in the grounds that the most wonderful change had been wrought, and Mr. Beresford could scarcely credit the evidence of his eyes when he saw what had been done. Weeds and obnoxious plants dug up by the roots; gravel walks cleaned and raked; quantities of fresh green sod where the grass had been almost dead; masses of potted flowers here and there upon the lawn and in the flower-garden; while the conservatory, which opened from the dining-room, was partly filled with rare exotics which Phil had ordered from Springfield.