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Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might be in time for her own dinner hour, had laughed and said, "Oh, a regular 'four-to-six, a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on 'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish I could go with you, I never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"

"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca, painted by some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his library, and it is so like you, so like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar.

We shall be alone together, for mamma and papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told me to ask you." "If it was any other evening." "Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!" "I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn." "Esther Bodn!" "Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I fixed Thursday, to-morrow."

"Kitty!" "Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves, eight-buttoned ones, and I don't believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe they her mother and she spell it that way to suit themselves. I believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I " "Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this, it's slander."

She had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then "made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura, airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn, in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the listeners.

In vain Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter.

"Ah, and this young lady is " Laura reached back, seized Esther's hand, and pulled her to her side. "Is Miss Bodn." "Mees Bodn!" he repeated with a start. "Mees Bodn! Ah, pardon me, do you spell this name B-o-w-d-o-i-n?" "You do, you do," as Esther answered in the affirmative; "and, pardon again, are you related to one Henri Henry, you call it here Henry Pierre Bowdoin?"

"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school, Esther Bodn." "How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's school?" "She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's assistance in the way of the French and German.

Why, it used to be the court end of the town years ago." "So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation, Russian Jews, and every other kind of a foreigner, and look here!" suddenly interrupting herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this Esther Bodn is a foreigner, an emigrant herself of some sort."

"Laura, how did it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?" interrupted Kitty. "It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out with her arms full of books.