“Philena, I have been in a funny brick house at the lake,” Thurley said, “and I want your granny to tell me why it is so queer—and who that old woman is, and who is Ali Baba and why can’t any one ever go there?” Betsey Pilrig, who was passing through the room, stopped in amazement. “Have you been inside the Clergy house?” she demanded. Thurley told her experience. Betsey sought refuge in the nearest rocking-chair. “Then, listen, Thurley, for as long as you’ve come to stay a spell, you ought to know—and I guess I can tell you as well as Hopeful Whittier or Ali Baba. A long time ago, most thirty-five years, that house was lived in by Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel Clergy, of New York City, and they were worth more money than they could count, but all they cared for was Abigail, their daughter, and they were going to leave her everything they owned just because they loved her so much. But they always planned she would marry some one and be as happy as a queen.” Betsey paused for a properly doleful sigh. “As I was sayin’, my cousin, Hopeful Whittier, had married, and her husband, Jim Whittier, was drowned on the Great Lakes three months after their weddin’ day. Hopeful came back to Birge’s Corners, just like to die of grief. Mrs. Clergy heard of it and came to see her, and she says, ‘My dear, come and live with us—Abby needs a maid of her own these days, and I think she’d like you.’ Of course poor Hopeful didn’t know about bein’ a lady’s maid and fixin’ hair and lace and all that Miss Abby wanted done. But she was so heartbroken for Jim—they never found his body—that she was glad to go, and the Clergys were so good to her and Miss Abby so kind and willin’ to show her how she wanted everything fixed that Hopeful was as happy as she could be—without forgettin’ Jim. “In them days the Clergy house—The Fincherie is its name—was never without guests. My stars, I’ve known as many as thirty extra people packed in there for a week at a time, and every other house on the shore the same with balls and basket picnics, charades and corn bakes and sailin’ trips every minute in the day! But out of every one there—and there was the grandest and the finest in the land—there was no one half so beautiful nor gay nor kindhearted as Abby Clergy—no one could deny but what it was so. Her father’s money and her fine clothes and jewels and her beauty didn’t turn her head a mite.