GRANDMOTHER
CHAPTER I
HOW SHE CAME TO THE VILLAGE
She was a slip of a girl when first she came to the village; slender and delicate, with soft brown hair blowing about her soft face. Those who saw her coming down the street beside Grandfather Merion thought he had brought back one of his grandnieces with him from the west for a visit; it was known that he had been out there, and he had been away all summer.
Anne Peace and her mother looked up from their sewing as the pair went by; Grandfather Merion walking slow and stately with his ivory-headed stick and his great three-cornered hat, the last one left in the village, his kind wise smile greeting the neighbors as he met them; and beside him this tall slender maiden in her light print gown that the wind was tossing about, as it tossed the brown cloud of hair about her cheeks.
“Look, mother!” said Anne Peace. “She is for all the world like a windflower, so pretty and slim. Who is it, think?”
“Some of his western kin, I s’pose,” said Widow Peace. “She is a pretty piece. See if she’s got the new back, Anne; I was wishful some stranger would come to town to show us how it looked.”
“Land, Mother,” said Anne; “her gown’s nothing but calico, and might have come out of the Ark, looks ’s though; not but what ’tis pretty on her. Real graceful! There! see her look up at him, just as sweet! I expect she is his grandniece, likely. There they go in ’t the gate, and he’s left it open, and the hens’ll get out. Rachel won’t like that! She keeps her hens real careful.”