I heard Miss Katherine talking about it to Miss Webb one night.  They were laughing about something Miss Katherine said was the most impossible of all, and Miss Webb said it was desecrating for such a stately old house to fall into the hands of such bulgarians.  What are bulgarians?  I don’t know.  But they’re not ladies.

Mrs. Reagan is not a lady.  The way I found it out was this.  Miss Jones, she’s our housekeeper, sent a message to her one day by Bertha Reed and me about some pickles.  Bertha is awful timid, and she didn’t know whether or not we ought to go to the front door; but I did, and I told her to come on.

“I don’t go to back doors, if I don’t know my family history,” I said.  “I know who I am, and something inside of me tells me where to go.”  And I pressed the button so hard I thought I’d broken it unintentional.

The man-servant opened the door and looked at us as if weary and surprised, and said nothing.

“Is Mrs. Reagan in?” I asked.

“She is.”

That’s all he said.  He waited.  I waited.  Then I stepped forward.

“We will come in,” I said.  “And you go and tell her Mary Cary would like to see her, having a message from Miss Jones.”  And he was so surprised he moved aside, and in I walked.

I had heard so much about this house that I wasn’t going to miss seeing what was in it, if that fool man was rude; so while he was gone to get Mrs. Reagan I counted everything in the front parlor as quick as I could, and told Bertha to count everything in the back.

There were three sofas and two mirrors and nine chairs and six rugs and six tables and two pianos, one little old-fashioned one and a big new one; and three stools and seventeen candlesticks and four pedestals with statuary on them, some broken, all naked; and seven palms and twenty-three pictures and two lamps and five red-plush curtains, three pairs over the lace ones and two at the doors; and as for ornaments, it was a shop.  And not one single book.

I am sure I got the things right, for I’d been practising remembering at observation parties, in case I ever got a chance to see inside this house; and I looked hard so I could tell the girls.

Poor Bertha was so frightened she didn’t remember anything but the clock and a china cat and an easel and picture, and before I could count Mrs. Reagan came in.

She stopped in the doorway, and had we come from leper-land she couldn’t have held herself farther off.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked, and she tried the haughty air—­“What are you doing in here?”

“We were waiting for you,” I said.  “We have a message from Miss Jones.”

“Well, another time don’t wait in here, and don’t come to the front door if you have a message from Miss Jones or Miss Any-body-else.  I don’t want any pickles this year.  Had I wanted any I would have sent her word.  You understand?  Don’t ever come here again in this way!” And she waved us out as if we were flies.