"The milkman says it's a woman. Her name's Mis' Lee. She come a week ago and last Saturday she was to the post-office, and up the river-road all the afternoon in that old phaeton with young Marsh."
Rosemary's heart paused for a moment, then resumed its beat.
"She's a play-actin' person, he says, or at any rate she looks like one, which amounts to the same thing. She's brought four trunks with her--one respectable trunk, same as anybody might have, one big square trunk that looks like a dog-house, and another big trunk that a person could move into if there wasn't no other house handy, and another trunk that was packed so full that it had bulged out on all sides but one, and when Jim and Dick took it up into the attic there wasn't but one side they could set it on. And whiles they was findin' a place to set it, she and young Marsh was laughin' down in the hall."
Servant's Gossip
"Who is she?" demanded Grandmother. "Where did she come from? How long is she goin' to stay? Where'd Mis' Marsh get to know her?"
"The milkman's wife was over last Monday," Matilda continued, "to help with the washin', and she says she never see such clothes in all her born days nor so many of 'em. They was mostly lace, and she had two white petticoats in the wash. The stocking was all silk, and she said she never see such nightgowns. They was fine enough for best summer dresses, and all lace, and one of 'em had a blue satin bow on it, and what was strangest of all was that there wa'n't no place to get into 'em. They was made just like stockin's with no feet to 'em, and if she wore 'em, she'd have to crawl in, either at the bottom or the top. She said she never see the beat of those nightgowns."
"Do tell!" ejaculated Grandmother.
"And her hair looks as if she ain't never combed it since the day she was born. The milkman says it looks about like a hen's nest and is pretty much the same colour. He see her on the porch for a minute, and all he could look at was that hair. And when he passed 'em on the river-road after they come from the post-office, he couldn't see her hair at all, cause she had on a big hat tied on with some thin light blue stuff. He reckoned maybe her hair was a wig."