 Instead, she visits her aunt's childhood friend, Mary Ainslie, whom the locals call "peculiar", because she never leaves her house.Ruth is immediately taken with Miss Ainslie's saintly demeanor and quickly forms a friendship with her.Ruth, who has resisted the urge to pillage her aunt's love letters, unwittingly stumbles onto a partial letter, which states, "At Gibraltar for some time, keeping a shop, but will probably be found now in some small town on the coast of Italy.