apron. 'Some peddler or agent, I dare say. Why couldn't he come round to
the kitchen, door, I'd like to know?'

She had been frequently troubled with peddlers and agents of all kinds,
and feeling certain that this was one--ringing the bell a second time,
as if in a hurry--she started for' the door in no very amiable frame of
mind, for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the lock or
key, which resisted all her efforts to turn it; and at last, putting her
mouth to the keyhole, she called out, rather sharply:

'Go to the back door: I cannot open this,'

Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen,
where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and
sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she
did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until a
voice wholly unlike that of any peddler or agent said to her;

'Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I hope I am not intruding.'

Then she turned, and to her horror and surprise, saw Grace Atherton,
attired in the coolest and daintiest of morning costumes, with a jaunty
French bonnet set coquettishly upon her head, and a silver card-case in
her hand.

For the moment Dolly's wits forsook her and she stood staring at her
visitor, who, perfectly at her ease, advanced into the room and said:

'I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Tracy, for this morning call I came--'