“You might have spared yourself the trouble. I don’t believe she’ll thank you. She just threw her head back and stared at grandma in such an impertinent way that I wanted to box her ears, especially when she said so haughtily, ‘Madam, I don’t understand you.’ She might have added, ‘and I don’t believe you either; my mother never came from such stock.’ That’s what she meant, and what her eyes and voice expressed. I don’t believe she looked at ma or me, though she did just touch the tips of my fingers. She had taken off her veil at grandma, and torn off her gloves for us—cotton, they were, too; and when you came, and grandma said, ‘Here’s another cousin,’ she snatched off her sailor hat and fanned herself rapidly, as if you were the straw too many. Yes, I hate her, and I think her just as homely as she can be, with her turn-up nose and lip. She’s as black, too, as the ace of spades, and those great, big, staring eyes are as insolent and proud as they can be, but I dare say you and Mr. Beresford are both in love with her.” Phil did not care to discuss the matter with his unreasonable cousin, who rattled on until the carriage stopped at Mrs. Ferguson’s door. Glad of the chance to escape from Anna’s tirade, Phil said he would walk home, and so the carriage drove on, leaving him standing by the gate with his grandmother, who said: “Such a tongue as Anny’s got!—hung in the middle, I do believe. She must git it from the Rices, for the Fergusons ain’t an atom backbity. Of course Rennet ain’t exactly what I thought Margaret’s girl would be, but—then—everything is strange and new to her. She’s all Hetherton, and the very image of the old lady, Fred’s mother. But you and I’ll stand by her Phil. Poor little lonesome critter! how I pity her, alone in that great house, with her father dead in the grave-yard, and her mother dead over the seas!” There were tears in grandma’s eyes, and Phil felt a lump in his own throat as he walked rapidly away, repeating her words to himself. “Poor little girl! Alone in that great house, with her father dead in the grave-yard, and her mother dead over the sea.” Phil was still a little sore and disappointed. He had made no impression upon Reinette, except it were one of disgust. And everything had turned out so differently from what he had hoped. Even Reinette was wholly different from his idea of her. The tall Amazon, with pink and white complexion and yellow hair, had proved to be a wee little creature, with dark eyes, and hair, and face, but still with something indescribably bewitching and graceful, in every turn of her head and motion of her body, while the clear, bell-like tones of her voice, with its pretty accent, rang continually in his ears, and he began to envy Mr. Beresford the pleasure of having her all to himself for an indefinite length of time.