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resembled the Mayor very closely, though he was slightly less massive, laughed. “Francis was bewitched. We saw her on the street this morning, obviously coming from that shabby little church on Bedford. Francis drew up the horses to look at the girl. I confess I thought her beautiful, too.”
    “A sweet little face with a pink mouth, and soft brown hair?”
    “No, Aunt Agnes. She wasn’t sweet at all; she had a strong and lovely face with remarkable coloring. And a great mass of red hair, floating far down her back. A tall girl, a graceful girl.”
    Mrs. Porter drew her brows together, considering. Then she cried, with hilarious delight, “Oh no, Francis! That could be only the very ugly girl called Ellen Watson, whose presumed aunt is right now in my kitchen, helping Mrs. Jardin!”
    “Then it couldn’t be the same girl, for the girl I saw had a magnificent face, very arresting. And I have never seen such gorgeous hair in all my life before. Like a cataract of copper in the sun, and not tied back with any ribbon.”
    “You will observe,” said Walter Porter, “that my son was bewitched. Yes, and I thought her beautiful, too. Very unusual young wench.”
    Francis’ color deepened. “She is not a ‘wench,’ begging your pardon, Papa. She had a look of—well, grandeur. Prideful, even noble. Angelic in another meaning of the term. I have never seen any girl like that before. She was not in the least like anyone else. Especially not in Preston, where everybody looks alike in some peculiar fashion.”
    “I agree with you there,” said Mrs. Porter, sighing. “Very dull people in this town.” She looked at Francis with new animation. “If you hadn’t said she was beautiful, this mysterious girl of yours, I’d think it was Ellen Watson, or that’s the surname her aunt alleges it is. There are quite a few stories—No, it couldn’t be Ellen Watson. Ellen is quite unattractive, a very big girl who looks older than she is.
    By the way, she will be working for me this summer, and you can see for yourself, Francis, that she is not the one of whom you have spoken.” She laughed lightly. “Still, I wonder who the girl is whom you saw. Red hair. Ellen’s the only one in town who has red hair, though I see that you prefer to call it copper.”
    She had another thought. “Was she prettily dressed, this girl?”
    “No, very poorly, in fact. I noticed her boots were broken, though polished.”
    Mrs. Porter was startled, but she gave her husband’s nephew a sly glance. “I wonder who she is. Well, we will see, tomorrow, Francis.”
    Walter Porter had been musing. Now he said, “It has just come to me. I saw a woman like that, or rather her portrait, when I was about Francis’ age and visiting a friend of mine in Philadelphia. She was young, but was already dead. Let me see: An Amy Sheldon, of a great family, in Philadelphia. She was the mother of my best friend, John Widdimer, but had died shortly after he was born. I visited him during university holidays a few times, and he visited us in Scranton. Remember him, Edgar?”
    The Mayor nodded. “What became of him? I thought he had a glorious future. One of the best families in Philadelphia, and very rich, too, and he was a clever young feller.”
    “Don’t you remember, Edgar?” asked Mrs. Porter. “They had a fine stable of horses and he was always riding. He was killed by a new stallion he had bought, a racer of which they had expected much. Old Widdimer had the stallion shot, which I thought was a dreadful waste of good horseflesh. John was a reckless chap in many ways and insisted on riding the stallion at once, though he was hardly broken to the bit. Very sad affair indeed. Very sad.” He sighed. “I’ll never forget the portrait of his mother. Very like the girl we saw this morning, hair and all, and with such a face! Pity.”
    “Was he married?” asked Mrs. Porter, intrigued.
    “No, no,” said her brother-in-law, shaking his head. “But I