Hilda came in and sat on the bed-edge. "Of course, I did, Annie. I wouldn't like either of you girls to be old maids. Women have a lot to put up with either way, married or single. But you have certainly rushed right along. First you quit a good job, dash off to a place where there isn't a man for miles and come home engaged; don't tell a soul for weeks and then marry in the lunch hour. I feel all upside-down."
Anne patted her knee. "Well, you'll get right side up again before I come back and then we'll have some good times, momsy."
Hilda's pleasure at the prospect vanished almost instantly.
"What papa will say, I'm sure I don't know."
"Shall I write him a note? I will, if it will make things easier. I don't want to upset him needlessly, for your sake. But he wouldn't be any better if he had a month to think about it."
"I know. But then, you must make allowances, Anne. At our ages we can't shift round so quick as you young folks, and papa thinks——"
"I know what papa thinks. Let's not go into that. But I don't, and, as I am the one marrying, papa's opinion doesn't matter. Besides, you know, I can get a job any day. I don't have to sit at home and be supported."
"Now see here, Anne, you may be a lot smarter than I ever was, but I'm older than you, and one thing I've learnt, if nothing else, it doesn't pay for a woman to work after she's married. A man may pretend he doesn't want her to and all that, but he gets used to it mighty soon and takes it for granted. And no woman can do it—keep a home and work and have babies. Just wait till some morning when you feel sick and have to go out as usual. Why, when Belle was coming, I couldn't lift up my head till ten o'clock. I——"
Anne turned quickly and began putting some things in a handbag. In a few moments Hilda wandered back again from her own first confinement to Anne's marriage.
"And to think you were married yesterday and came home here as cool as you please. Now when I was young, if a girl had done a thing like that it would have been thought wicked, although I don't know but what it is a good thing for the man. It's just as well to keep them waiting as long as you can. Besides, an hotel room, just an ordinary room where the man's been living right along, seems kind of—coarse."