The Greys were new-comers in Merivale, and no one knew anything about them, except that they had come from Denver and seemed to be very poor. But both Mr. Grey and his wife were so affable and had about them an air of so much good breeding and refinement that it won them friends at once, and a place in the best society of the town—always excepting, of course, Judge White, who held aloof from strangers until he knew the length of their purse, or their pedigree, both of which he considered indispensable if he were to take them up. The Greys had neither, he was sure, for they rented one of his cheap cottages in what was known as White Row; and Louie, when questioned by Herbert as to her pedigree, said at first that she didn’t think they had one; or if they had, they didn’t call it by that name; and when he explained to her what he meant, citing his grandfather and great-grandfather as examples of his meaning, she answered at once: “Oh, yes, I have, or did have, a grandfather and great-grandfather, like you—captains of ships, which sailed from Nantucket out upon the seas, and were called either smugglers or pirates, I don’t know which. I’ll ask father.” She did ask him, and, with his fondness for humor and jokes, Mr. Grey replied, “Tell him both, by all means, and that you have quite as blooded a pedigree as he can boast.” How much of this Herbert believed, it were difficult to tell. Smugglers and pirates had an ugly sound, and for a time he kept aloof from the girl whose ancestry was so questionable; then her sunny face and saucy eyes prevailed over prejudice, and they became inseparable. She was no end of fun, he said, and followed fearlessly where he led her. She was not afraid of snakes, nor bugs, nor beetles, nor worms, for he had tried them all upon her, and she had neither screeched nor flinched, but paid him in his own coin, and made him more afraid of her than she was of him. She could climb a fence or a tree as fast as he could, and faster, too, as he knew by experience; for once, when he started up an elm in which there was a robin’s nest, with four blue eggs in it, she went after him like a little cat, and, seizing him by the coat collar, nearly threw him to the ground and made him give up the nest, to which the father and mother robins, who had been uttering cries of distress, returned in peace, finding their eggs unmolested. “I’ll never speak to you again,” she said to him when she had him safe on the ground, with her hand still holding to his collar, while he made frantic efforts to get away from her.