What Mrs. Ferguson wanted was to know if he had ever heard his mother or sisters speak of a dressmaker at Martha’s Vineyard, a Miss Margery La Rue, who was a Frenchwoman, and who had written to Mrs. Ferguson, asking if she wished to sell out her business, and if it would pay for a first-class dressmaker to come to Merrivale.
“Here’s her letter, read it for yourself if you can,” Mrs. Ferguson said. “Anny and me found it hard work to make it out, the writing is so finefied.”
Philip took the letter, which was written in that fine, peculiar hand common to the French, and which was a little difficult at first to decipher. But the language was in good English and well expressed, and the writer, Miss Margery La Rue, late from Paris, wished to know if there was an opening for a dressmaker in Merrivale, and if Mrs. Ferguson wished to sell out, as Miss La Rue had been told she did.
“I wish to mercy ma would get out of the hateful business and take that horrid sign out of her window. I’d split it up quick for kindlings. I’m always ashamed when I see it,” Miss Anna said, petulantly, for she was foolish enough and weak enough to ascribe all her fancied slights to the fact that her mother was a dressmaker and had a sign in her window.
Mrs. Ferguson, however, did not share in this feeling, and reprimanded her ambitious daughter sharply, while Philip, who knew how sore she was upon the point, asked her if she really thought she would be any better with the obnoxious sign gone and her mother out of business.
“Of course I wouldn’t be any better. I’m just as good as anybody now,” Miss Anna retorted, with a toss of her head. “But you know as well as I, that folks don’t think so, and ma and I are not invited a quarter of the time just because we work for a living. Even your sisters Ethel and Grace would not notice me if I wasn’t their cousin. As it is, they feel obliged to pay me some attention. I hate the whole thing, and I hope I shall live to see the day when I can go to the sea-side, and wear handsome dresses and diamonds, and have a girl to wash the dishes and wait on me. There’s the bell, now: somebody to get some work done, of course,” and Anna flounced out of the room to wait upon a customer, while her mother asked Philip again if he had ever heard his sisters speak of Miss La Rue.
Philip never had, but promised to inquire when he went to the Vineyard, as he intended doing in a few days. Then, not caring for a second encounter with his cousin, he went out of the side door and escaped into the street, breathing freer in the open air and wondering why Anna need always to bother him about being slighted because she was poor, as if that made any difference.
Mr. Beresford was the next to accost Phil, and as the Hetherton business was uppermost in his mind, he walked home with the young man and opened the subject at once by telling him of the letter and asking if he had ever heard of Reinette Hetherton.
“Reinette Hetherton—Reinette,” Philip repeated. “No, never; but that’s a pretty name, and means ‘little queen.’ I wonder what kind of a craft she is? Frenchy, of course, and I hate the French. She must be my cousin, too, as I have never heard that Mr. Hetherton married a second time. When will she be here?”
Phil was interested in the girl at once, but Mr. Beresford, who was several years older, was more interested in the numerous arrangements he was to make for her reception. They had reached the Knoll by this time, and were met in the hall by the colonel, who did not manifest the least annoyance because of Mr. Beresford’s presence, but on the contrary seemed glad to have him there, as it relieved him from any prolonged stay with his son.