Hesse's odd name, which had been her mother's, her grandmother's, and her great-grandmother's before her, was originally borrowed from that of the old German town whence the first Reinike had emigrated to America. She had not spent quite all of the time at Sparlings-Neck since her mother died. There had been two years at boarding-school, broken by long vacations, and once she had made a visit in New York to her mother's cousin, Mrs. De Lancey, who considered herself a sort of joint guardian over Hesse, and was apt to send a frock or a hat, now and then, as the fashions changed; that "the child might not look exactly like Noah, and Mrs. Noah, and the rest of the people in the ark," she told her daughter. This visit to New York had taken place when Hesse was about fifteen; now she was to make another. And, just as this story opens, she and Aunt were talking over her wardrobe for the occasion.
"I shall give you this China-crape shawl," said Aunt, decisively.
Hesse looked admiringly, but a little doubtfully, at the soft, clinging fabric, rich with masses of yellow-white embroidery.
"I am afraid girls don't wear shawls now," she ventured to say.
"My dear," said Aunt, "a handsome thing is always handsome; never mind if it is not the last novelty, put it on, all the same. The Reinikes can wear what they like, I hope! They certainly know better what is proper than these oil-and-shoddy people in New York that we read about in the newspapers. Now, here is my India shawl,"—unpinning a towel, and shaking out a quantity of dried rose-leaves. "I lend you this; not give it, you understand."
"I shall give you this China-crape shawl," said aunt, decisively.—[Page 88.]
"Thank you, Aunt, dear." Hesse was secretly wondering what Cousin Julia and the girls would say to the India shawl.
"You must have a pelisse, of some sort," continued her aunt; "but perhaps your Cousin De Lancey can see to that. Though I might have Miss Lewis for a day, and cut over that handsome camlet of mine. It's been lying there in camphor for fifteen years, of no use to anybody."
"Oh, but that would be a pity!" cried Hesse, with innocent wiliness. "The girls are all wearing little short jackets now, trimmed with fur, or something like that; it would be a pity to cut up that great cloak to make a little bit of a wrap for me."