n man as was a stranger and
furriner to her; and a heathen and a pagan for aught that she knew."

"But they loved one another; there is no question of that," pleaded Miss
Grandiere.

"What if they did? That's the contrariness of it, sez I! What call had
either of 'em be 'a loving of strangers and furriners and a marrying of
them, sez I? And now the gal has done just as her father and mother did
before her! Turned her back on her own kith and kin, and took up 'long of
a stranger and a furriner, and a heathen and a pagan, for aught she knows,
sez I! It's in the blood, sez I! 'Trot sire, trot dam,' sez I! 'and the
colt'll never pace,' sez I! And now, ladies, if you have thawed out and
will take off your bonnets and things, I will put them away. But maybe you
would rather go to a bedroom?"

"Yes," said Miss Grandiere, rising and going to a door on the side leading
into an inner chamber.

"Oh! stop. Don't go in there, please, Miss Sukey, I--I have got a strange
lady in there," hastily exclaimed their hostess.

"A strange lady!" repeated Miss Grandiere, in surprise.

"Yes--leastways a strange woman. I don't know about a lady; for if you're
not acquainted with a person, sez I, you can't tell if they are ladies or
no. But come upstairs and I will tell you about her, or leastways all I
know about her. Lor', I sometimes s'picions as maybe she's Roland's
mother!"

CHAPTER XIX

A STRANGE WOMAN

Miss Sibby opened a door in the corner near the fireplace and led her
visitors up a steep and narrow flight of stairs to a small upper chamber
in the roof, which was lighted by one dormer window, and furnished very
simply with a bedstead, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and two cane
chairs.

"Now, you see, I'm very sorry to have to fetch you up here, where there's
no fire; but that strange woman, you know, when she come, of course I had
to give up my room to her, and so you see how it is," said Miss Sibby,
apologetically.

"Oh! never mind. We shall not stay up here long enough to get chilled; but
who is the woman, anyhow?" inquired Mrs. Hedge.

"Well, she is a widdy woman, and her name is a Mrs. Wright, and she come
from Callyfoundland."

"California, do you mean?"

"Yes; I s'pose that is it. I was thinking of Newfoundland, where Roland
made his first voyage, and I got 'em mixed. It's impossible to memorize
all the places, sez I. Well, about Mrs. Wright. She was a passenger on
board the _Blue Bird_; and, naterally