Popple slapped a stout thigh, and his eyes rounded in surprise. "Sink me! but that explains it!" he cried.
"Explains what?"
"I wondered where I had seen the girl in bib an' tucker afore."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, these here caps an' streamers an' tickle-me aprons do make a heap of difference! Now what in the world will she think of me? I've passed her a dozen times without ever a 'Thank you, Miss,' or a touch of me hat. Dash my buttons! I thought my eyes were sharper'n that! Of course she was wrapped in a sou'wester an' oilskin the other day, an' so was Mrs. Carmac; so I piped the likeness then, an' even spoke of it to Mr. Ingersoll. But I must ha been rattled when I was in Mrs. Carmac's room a bit since. Of course I remember now. That was her, right enough."
"Would you mind telling me what you are rambling about, Captain Popple?"
Popple grinned. "There's a pair of us, Mr. Raymond," he cried. "You don't seem to know much about the lady, either. You met her on the stairs when you went to see Mrs. Carmac, because I happened to notice that she kem down as you went up."
"A girl in Breton costume?"
"That's it. She's lived here since she was a baby, an' I s'pose she took to the village ways."
Raymond was so astounded by a fact that, after all, was not of vital importance, that he put the next question literally to gain time for the readjustment of his ideas. "You have heard something of her history, then?"