s we shouldn't have come
today anyway," she said. "You were busy with your trunk when we came
up."

"I was just looking over some old dresses and relics I've kept for many
years," said Drusilla. "There's a dress in there," she said, "that I
wore when as a young girl I lived with my parents way back across the
ocean."

"A big city?" asked Maizie. "Not like Anchorville?"

"A big city," returned Drusilla. "You see that glass case in the corner?
Go and look at it."

Suzanna and Maizie sprang up and went to the dusky corner. On a table
stood the glass case, and under it was an apple, a pear, a bunch of
grapes, and a banana, all made of wax.

"That came from the city across the water," said Drusilla. "It was given
to my grandmother by our old herb woman."

The children left the wax fruit and went and stood quite close to
Drusilla. "What's an old herb woman?" asked Maizie, interestedly.

"Why, she was our doctor in those days. She had an old shop buried away
in a part of the town that we reached by crossing a canal. Many is the
time my grandmother took me to that old shop with its rows of dried
herbs hanging from the ceiling; with its old worn corners, and its
barrel of white cocoanut oil standing near the door. Oh, I loved that
place. I loved the smell of the herbs and I loved the little old woman
who could brew teas from her herbs that would cure any ailment in the
world, I thought. And then right next to the old herb shop was a pawn
shop with three tarnished golden balls above the door."

"A pawn shop?" The children wanted to know the meaning of that kind of
shop.

"A shop," said Drusilla, warming to her keen audience, "to which you
could bring anything, from a worn out dress to a piece of jewelry, and
get money for it and a ticket. And if you wanted the dress or the
jewelry back again, then you brought the ticket and the money and a
little interest.

"The old pawn shop was a landmark. It had stood next to the herb shop,
my grandmother told me, for a hundred years; during all these years
owned by the same family. When I was a little girl a woman kept the
shop. She was very tall, very thin, with quantities of black hair
braided and wound round and round her head. She wore always a Paisley
shawl of faded colors, and her hair coiled as it was made me think
always of a crown.

"The shop was long and narrow and full of wonderful rare, old
curios--old violins, cameos, and uncut stones. I was allowed to go all
over