“Reinette, Reinette!” she repeated, as with clasped hands, and head bent forward in the attitude of intense listening, she heard the whole story Phil told, and laughed a little to herself at the ludicrous description of the Fergusons, and the impression they made upon the stranger. “I can imagine just how cold and haughty, and proud she grew, and how those great eyes blazed with scorn and incredulity, if it is my Reinette he means,” she thought; “but it cannot be. There is some mistake.” Then as the name Queenie was spoken she half rose to her feet and laid both hands upon her mouth to force back the glad cry which sprang to her lips. There could be no longer a doubt. This foreigner, this girl from France, this cousin of the Rossiters, this near relation of the Fergusons, whoever they might be, was her Queenie, her darling, whom she loved with such devotion as few women have ever inspired in another. How she longed to rush into the next room and pour out question after question concerning her friend; but this she could not do; she was only a seamstress and must remain quiet, for the present at least, for she did not know how the Rossiters would like her to claim acquaintance and friendship with their kinswoman. So she resumed her work while the talk in the next room flowed on, always of Queenie, as they called her because Phil did, and in whom the mother and sisters were so greatly interested. They had intended stopping at the sea-side for the summer, but now they spoke of an earlier return to Merrivale on Queenie’s account, a plan of which Phil highly approved, for he would far rather be at home than there, especially as his mother was improving daily.
“And Anna? How is she?” Ethel asked. “Does she take kindly to our cousin, or is she jealous of her, as of us?”
This mention of Anna reminded Phil of the Miss La Rue, who had written to his aunt, and in whose identity with her friend, Queenie had been so much interested.
“By the way,” he said, “there’s a dressmaker here somewhere, a Margery La Rue, from Paris, whom Queenie thinks she knows, and over whom she goes into rhapsodies. Do you know her, and is she the person who wrote to Aunt Lydia with regard to her business?”
A warning “sh-sh” came from both the young ladies, with a nod toward the slightly open door, indicating that the person inquired for was there. Then the voices were lowered and the door was shut, and the wonder and interest increased as Ethel and Grace heard all which Reinette had said of their dressmaker, whose taste and skill they esteemed so highly that they had suggested her going to Merrivale, but did not then know that she had written to their aunt, for the girl was very reticent concerning herself and her business, and only spoke when she was spoken to.
“It is very strange that she should know our cousin so well,” Ethel said. “I mean to sound her on the subject, and hear what she has to say,” and as it was time for Mrs. Rossiter to take her airing in her invalid chair the conference broke up, and on pretext of seeing to her dress Ethel went into the room where Margery now sat sewing as quietly and composedly as if she had never heard of Queenie Hetherton.
CHAPTER XVI.
MARGERY LA RUE.
She was a tall, beautiful blonde, with reddish golden hair, and lustrous blue eyes shaded with long curling eyelashes and heavy eyebrows, which made them seem darker than they really were. The features were finely cut and perfectly regular, and the whole face and figure were of that refined, delicate, type supposed to belong mostly to the upper classes in whose veins the purest of patrician blood is flowing. She said she was twenty-one, but she seemed older on account of that air of independence and self-reliance habitual to persons accustomed to care and think for themselves. She had come to America the April previous and stopped at Martha’s Vineyard with her mother, who was short, and stout, and dark, but rather prepossessing in her manner, with more signs of culture and education than is usual with the ordinary type of French woman. In her girlhood she must have been very pretty and attractive, with her bright complexion and large black eyes, which had not yet lost their brilliancy, though there was in them a sad thoughtful expression, as if she were continually haunted with some bitter memory.
Margery had been introduced to the Misses Rossiter by a friend from Boston who had employed her in Paris, but occupied as they were with their mother and the gay world around them, they had hardly thought whether she were unusually pretty or not, until Phil electrified them with the news that she was the friend of their cousin, who said she was beautiful.