ty.

"I sha'n't slight nobody at all edible to society," she said, "for I
don't believe in that. I shall have Miss Lucy Grey, of course, from
Grey's Park, for she is the cream-dilly-cream of Allington, she and your
Aunt, Miss McPherson," turning to Daisy, "and mebby I shall ask Hanner
Jerrold, though she never goes anywheres--that's Grey's aunt," and now
she nodded to Bessie, who at the mention of the name Jerrold, evinced a
little interest in what the lady was saying.

Turning to Augusta, who was eating her strawberries and cream in
silence, with a look of vexation on her face as her mother floundered
on, she said:

"I think you told me you knew Mr. Grey Jerrold?"

"Yes," Augusta replied, "that is, he once spent a summer in Allington
and I went to the same school with him; since then we have met several
times in Allington and two or three times here. Still, I really know
very little of him."

"Who's that you know very little of--Grey Jerrold?" Mrs. Browne chimed
in. "Well, I call that droll. Have you forgot how often he used to come
home from school with you, and how he fished you out of the pond that
time you fell in? Why, he was that free at our house, that he used
always to ask for something to eat, and would often add on, 'something
baked to day.' You see, he didn't like dry victuals, such as his Aunt
Hannah gave him. She is _tight_ as the bark of a tree, and queer too,
with it all."

It grated on Bessie's nerves to hear Mrs. Browne speak of Grey as if she
were his equal, and recognized as such at home, and she was glad when
Augusta said, quietly:

"But, mother, I was a little girl then, six or seven years old, and Grey
felt at home at our house because--"

She did not finish the sentence, as she had evidently struck against a
reef which her mother overleaped by saying:

"Yes, I know, Grey was always a nice boy, and not one bit stuck up like
his proud mother. I hate Geraldine Grey; yes, I do!" and Mrs. Browne
manifested the first sign of unamiability which Daisy had ever seen in
her. But Daisy, who remembered perfectly the haughty woman she had met
at Penrhyn Park years before, hated her, too, and so there was accord
between her and her guest.

"Mr. Jerrold told me of his aunt who lives in the pasture, and whom he
loves very much. Do you know her?" Bessie asked, and Mrs. Browne
replied:

"Yes; that's his Aunt Hanner, the one I told you was so tight. She is an
old maid, and queer, too; lives all alone