“What did you call the woman?” Reinette asked, rousing up suddenly from her reclining posture and looking earnestly at Anna, who replied: “Miss Margery La Rue, from Martha’s Vineyard. She has done some work, I believe for my cousins, who think highly of her, and suggested her buying out ma’s business. Why, how excited you seem! Do you know her?” she asked, as Reinette sprang up quickly, her cheeks flushing, her eyes sparkling, and her whole appearance indicative of pleasurable surprise. “Margery La Rue,” she repeated. “The name is the same, and she is French, too, you say, but it cannot be my Margery, for the last I heard from her she was in Nice, and talked of going to Rome, but it is singular that there should be two dressmakers of the same name. What do you know of her? Is she old or young?” “I know nothing except the name,” Anna said, astonished at her cousin’s interest in and evident liking for a mere dressmaker. “Is your Miss La Rue young, and was she your friend?” she asked, and Reinette replied: “Yes, she was my friend—the dearest I ever had, and the only one, I may say, except papa, and she is beautiful, too; she has the loveliest face I ever saw—sweet and spirituelle as one of Murillo’s Madonnas, with soft blue eyes, and sunny hair.” “But how came you so intimate with her, and she only a dressmaker?” Anna asked. “It is too long a story to tell you now,” Reinette replied. “I have known her since I was a child. I never thought anything about her being a dressmaker. She is educated, and refined, and good, and true, with not a single low instinct in her nature, and that, I think, is what constitutes a lady rather than money or what one does for a living.” Anna shrugged her shoulders incredulously. In her own estimation she was refined and educated, and yet she was not recognized as a lady by those to whose notice she aspired; but she made no reply, and Reinette continued: “I shall take steps at once to ascertain if this Miss La Rue you speak of is my Margery, and if she is, and it is merely a matter of money which keeps her from accepting your mother’s offer, I think I can make _two_ people happy; you first, if taking that sign from your window will do it, and myself, by bringing her here where I can see her every day, if I wish to.” Before Anna could reply, Grandma Ferguson came in, puffing with exercise, and apologizing for her long absence. “I didn’t mean to be gone more’n a minit,” she said, “but Mrs. Jerry offered to show me all over the house, and I kinder wanted to see it, as it’s my fust chance. The last, and I may say the only time I was ever here, I was turned out o’ door afore I could look about me.” “Turned out of doors! For what, and by whom?” Reinette asked, in astonishment, and grandma replied: