how you was coming, Jim, I'd have liked to meet you and her little
ladyship--the first ladyship we've had in these parts. You didn't give
us any idea, though, and now I see why. But look here, Mother, you
might have had the front door open. I'm afraid the young lady from
England will think we're mighty informal."

"I shouldn't wonder if that's just about what she'll like to think,
Father," said Mrs. Trowbridge, with her smile that was so motherly and
friendly at the same time. "Miss Woodburn would have been over to see
you if she could; she was just ready to jump for joy when Patty ran
across to tell her you were coming; but Mis' Randal is pretty sick, and
Sally felt she couldn't leave her yet awhile. So she sent you her love,
and she'll be along the minute she can git away."

Just for an instant it struck me as odd to hear this simple farm woman
in her straight print calmly calling my charming, dainty friend
"Sally," as if there could be no shadow of doubt in anyone's mind of
their perfect social equality. But in another second I could have boxed
my own ears for my denseness and snobbish stupidity. Already--even in
these few minutes--I was beginning faintly to understand some of the
"points" at which Mr. Brett had hinted.

"Maybe you'd like to go and have a look at your room," went on Mrs.
Trowbridge. "Patty and Ide have picked you some flowers, and I hope
you'll find everything right----"

"Oh, Mis' Trowbridge, do let me take her," exclaimed Patty.

"Me too!" cried Ide.

"They're just like children. I guess we'll have to humour them this
once," laughed Mr. Brett's Cousin Fanny.

When I smiled at Patty, she cuddled her arm round me, and then Ide
promptly did the same. Thus interlaced, the procession moved into the
house.

The door of the verandah opens into a cosy sitting-room. There is
nothing which you could point out as pretty in the furnishing, and
decoration there is none; but the room has a delicious, welcoming look,
and makes you want to live in it.

There is the queerest carpet on the floor, with irregular stripes of
different colours mingling indistinctly with the grey groundwork, and
all has faded into a pleasant indefiniteness of tint. There's a
high-backed sofa upholstered with black horse-hair, and the springs
have evidently been pressed by generations of Trowbridges who have been
born, and reared, and died in the old Valley Farmhouse. The big, ugly
clock, too, with the pendulum showing through