"I do, too, Tess Kenway!" cried the smaller girl. "Ruthie has to watch us 'cause _you_ button your apron crooked. You know you do!"
"I don't mean to," said Tess, "but I can't see behind me. I'd like to be as neat looking all the time as that lady in the gray cloak. Oh, Ruthie! who was she?"
"I have no idea whom you are talking about," said the elder sister, curiously. "'The lady in the gray cloak'? What lady in a gray cloak?"
At once Tess and Dot began to explain. They were both eager, they were both vociferous; and the particulars of the morning's adventure, including the meeting with Miss Pepperill, the falling of the telegraph pole, the woman in the gray cloak, and the sovereigns of England, became most remarkably mixed in the general relation of facts.
"Mercy! Mercy, children!" cried Ruth, in despair. "Let us go at the matter in something like order. Why did the lady in the gray cloak want you to learn the succession of the sovereigns of England? And did the telegraph pole hit poor Miss Pepperill, or was she merely scared by its fall?"
Tess stared at her older sister wonderingly. "Well, I do despair!" she breathed at last, repeating one of good Mrs. MacCall's odd exclamations. "I never did suppose you could misunderstand a body so, Ruthie Kenway."
Ruth threw back her head at that and laughed heartily. Then she endeavored to get at the meat in the nut by asking questions. Soon--by the time her little sisters were ready to descend to the dining room--Ruth had a fair idea of the happening and the reason for the interest Tess and Dot displayed in the identity of the woman in the gray cloak.
But Ruth could not help the little ones to discover the name of the stranger. They all went down to dinner when Uncle Rufus rang the gong at the hall door.
That front hall of the old Corner House was a vast place, with a gallery all around it at the level of the second story, out of which opened the "grand" bedrooms (only one of which had ever been occupied during the girls' occupancy of the house, and that by Aunt Sarah) and it had a broad staircase with beautifully carved balustrades.
Uncle Rufus was a tall (though stooped), lean and brown negro, with a fringe of snow-white wool around his brown, bald crown. He always appeared to serve at table in a long, claw-hammer coat, a white vest and trousers, and gray spats. He was the type of old Southern house servant one reads about, seldom finds in the North; and he had lived in the old Corner House and served Uncle Peter Stower "endurin' of twenty-four year," as he often boasted.