offered a
unique simplicity in the way of choice. Miss Pearson, the
postmistress, decided for them that the ribbon was the right width and
quality, and even offered a few hints on the subject of trimming.

"I believe she's longing to do it herself!" whispered Aveline. "Are
those specimens of her millinery in the window? I'd as soon wear a
cauliflower on my head as that erection with the squirms of velvet and
the lace border!"

"You're sure three yards will be sufficient?" pattered the little
storekeeper. "Well, of course you can come for more if you want. I'm
not likely to be selling it out, and, if anybody should happen to come
and ask for the rest of it, I'll get them to wait till you've finished
trimming your hat. Dear me! If I haven't mislaid my scissors now! I
was cutting flowers with them in the garden before breakfast, and I
must have put them down in the middle of the sweet peas, or on the
onion bed. It wouldn't take me five minutes to find them. You'd
rather not wait? Then perhaps you'll excuse my using this."

Without further apology, Miss Pearson seized the carving-knife with
which she usually operated on the cheese and bacon, and, giving it a
hasty wipe upon her apron, proceeded to saw through the ribbon,
wrapping up the three yards in a scrap of newspaper.

"I'm sorry I'm out of paper bags," she announced airily, "but the
traveller only calls once in six months. Let me know how you get on
with the hat, and, if you want any help that I can give you, just
bring it across to me, and I'll do my best. By the by, I suppose you
young ladies go to a fine boarding-school? Do you learn foreign
languages there?"

"Why, yes--French and German and Latin--most of us," replied Raymonde,
rather astonished.

"Then perhaps you'll be so good as to help me, for there's a letter
arrived this morning I can make nothing of. It's certainly not in
English, but whether it's in French or German or Russian or what, I
can't say, for I'm no authority on languages."

"Let me look at it, and I will do my best."

Miss Pearson bustled to her postmistress's desk, and with an air of
great importance produced the letter. Raymonde took it carelessly
enough, but when she had grasped a few sentences her expression
changed. She read it through to the end, then laid it down on the
counter without offering to translate.

"This is not addressed to you, I think," she remarked.

"You're quite right, it's for Martha Verney; but she's no sc