She was tall and angular, with large features, sharp nose, and little bright, black, bead-like eyes, which seemed to look you through, and read your most secret thoughts. As her name indicated, she was of Scotch descent; indeed, her grandfather was Scotch by birth, but he had moved into England, where her father and mother, and herself were born, so that she called herself English, though she gloried in her Scotch blood and her Scotch face, which was unmistakable.
After her birth, her father had bought a place in Bangor, Wales, which he called Stoneleigh, and there her two brothers, Hugh and John, were born, and her parents had died.
She had come alone to Allington, when comparatively young, and, settling down quietly, had for a time watched closely the habits of the people around her, and posted herself thoroughly with regard to the workings and institutions of a Republic, and then she adopted them heartily, and became an out-and-out American, and only lamented that she could not vote and take part in the politics of the country. Of her past life she never spoke, and of her family seldom. Her father and mother were dead; she had two brothers, both well enough in their way, but wholly unlike each other, she had once told Lucy Grey, whom she had always liked, and with whom she was more intimate than with any one else in Allington, unless it were Hannah Jerrold. Although very proud of her family name and family blood, she was no boaster, and no one in Allington would ever have known that one of her brothers had been in Parliament, and that his wife was a Lady Jane Trevellian, if chance had not thrown them in the way of Mrs. Geraldine.
Once, and once only, had she returned to her native land, and that two or three years before our story opens. Then she had been absent three or four months, and when she returned to Allington, she seemed grimmer and sterner than ever, and more intolerant of everything which did not savor of the "naked truth." And yet, as Lucy Grey had said of her to her sister, she was true as steel to her friends, and at heart was one of the kindest and best of women, and, with the exception of Miss Lucy Grey, no one in Allington was found so often in the houses of the poor as she, and though she rebuked sharply when it was necessary, and told them they were dirty and shiftless when they were, she made her kindness felt in so many ways that she was, if possible, more popular than Lucy herself, for, while Lucy only gave them money and sympathy, she helped them with her hands, and, if necessary, swept their floors, and washed their faces, and made their beds, and sometimes took their children home and kept them with her for days.
Such was Miss Betsey McPherson, who, as she is to figure conspicuously in this story, merits this introduction to the reader, and who, in her black silk of a dozen years old, with a long, heavy gold chain around her neck and a cap fashioned after the English style upon her head, stood up very tall and stiff to receive Mrs. Geraldine, but did not bend her head when she saw it was that lady's intention to kiss her.
"I know she would as soon kiss a piece of sole-leather as me, and I would rather kiss a flour-barrel than that powdered face," was her thought; and so she only gave her hand to Mrs. Jerrold, who told her how glad she was to see her and how much she was pleased with her brother, the Hon. John McPherson, and his charming wife, the Lady Jane.
"Why have you never spoken of them to us? I should be proud of such relatives," she said; and Miss McPherson replied:
"Umph! What's the use? I'm no better, no worse for them."
Just then the sound of bells was heard, and Hannah and Grey came in, and were received most cordially by Miss McPherson, who unbent to them as she had not done to the Boston lady. Indeed, there was something even tender in her voice as she spoke to Hannah and inquired after her father. Then, turning to Grey, she laid one hand on his head, and taking his chin in the other, looked searchingly in his face as she said:
"I wonder if you are the same boy I used to like so much, or has a trip to Europe spoiled you, as it does so many Americans?"