“What do you hear from your F——, from Mr. Poole?” Cap’n Sackett questioned Anne, while Polly and Nelly chattered to the others. Anne bit her lip; but she answered almost in spite of herself, it seemed.
“I haven’t heard from Father since I came. He’s a poor correspondent, Mother says.”
“I guess I know that!” The old man shook his head understandingly. “I’ve known him nearly twenty years, Anne, for better, for worse. How’s the baby?”
“He was well when I left Chicago,” answered Anne shortly.
“Father’s in Canady, ain’t he?” inquired the Captain. “Not comin’ down this summer, no?”
“No,” said Anne. “And I shall write him about Idlewild. He will be very angry when he hears how badly the place looks.”
The Captain glanced at Anne out of the corner of his eye. “Why, I’ve been up there now and again,” he said slowly. “He told me to keep an eye on the place, and I have. I thought it looked all right enough, for an empty place—kinder lonesome, of course; but you can’t help that.” He saw the girl wince at the word “lonesome.”
“It looks horrid,” insisted Anne.
“It’s a big barn of a place,” agreed the Captain. “Not so homy as this old shack of mine, now I’ve got Nelly and her mother here. Say, you used to like the Cove here pretty well once, Anne. Do you remember?”
Anne glanced around the simple room with the ornaments that she remembered very well from visits in her earliest childhood. “It seems a long time ago,” she said. The old man sighed.