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s we shouldn't have come today anyway," she said. "You were busy with your trunk when we came up." "I was just looking over some old dresses and relics I've kept for many years," said Drusilla. "There's a dress in there," she said, "that I wore when as a young girl I lived with my parents way back across the ocean." "A big city?" asked Maizie. "Not like Anchorville?" "A big city," returned Drusilla. "You see that glass case in the corner? Go and look at it." Suzanna and Maizie sprang up and went to the dusky corner. On a table stood the glass case, and under it was an apple, a pear, a bunch of grapes, and a banana, all made of wax. "That came from the city across the water," said Drusilla. "It was given to my grandmother by our old herb woman." The children left the wax fruit and went and stood quite close to Drusilla. "What's an old herb woman?" asked Maizie, interestedly. "Why, she was our doctor in those days. She had an old shop buried away in a part of the town that we reached by crossing a canal. Many is the time my grandmother took me to that old shop with its rows of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling; with its old worn corners, and its barrel of white cocoanut oil standing near the door. Oh, I loved that place. I loved the smell of the herbs and I loved the little old woman who could brew teas from her herbs that would cure any ailment in the world, I thought. And then right next to the old herb shop was a pawn shop with three tarnished golden balls above the door." "A pawn shop?" The children wanted to know the meaning of that kind of shop. "A shop," said Drusilla, warming to her keen audience, "to which you could bring anything, from a worn out dress to a piece of jewelry, and get money for it and a ticket. And if you wanted the dress or the jewelry back again, then you brought the ticket and the money and a little interest. "The old pawn shop was a landmark. It had stood next to the herb shop, my grandmother told me, for a hundred years; during all these years owned by the same family. When I was a little girl a woman kept the shop. She was very tall, very thin, with quantities of black hair braided and wound round and round her head. She wore always a Paisley shawl of faded colors, and her hair coiled as it was made me think always of a crown. "The shop was long and narrow and full of wonderful rare, old curios--old violins, cameos, and uncut stones. I was allowed to go all over
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