“Here is your supper, Anne. And I hope you are ready to tell me why you pushed Amanda down and ran off with her basket,” and Mrs. Stoddard looked at Anne with a puzzled expression in her kind eyes.
“I did not——” began Anne.
“There, there, child. Mrs. Cary told me the whole story. Tell me the truth, and I’ll not be hard with you,” and Mrs. Stoddard set down the mug and plate on the light-stand and stood waiting.
“I will not say another word!” declared Anne, who felt that even her dear Aunt Martha had turned against her.
“Then you must stay up here until you are a more obedient child,” said Mrs. Stoddard, and went slowly out of the room. “I don’t see what has possessed the child,” she said to Captain Enos on returning to the kitchen.
“She has always been a truthful child, Martha,” ventured the captain, “so why not believe her now?”
“I would gladly, Enos; but Mrs. Cary came straight to me as soon as Amanda reached home, and ’twas an hour later when Anne returned, and she has no word of excuse. ’Twill do the child no harm to stay in her room until she can tell me the reason for such behavior. And of course this visit to the Freemans’ must be given up. ’Twould not do to let her go after such conduct.”
“A pity,” responded the captain. “’Twould have been a fine journey for the little maid.”
Anne could hear the murmur of their voices as she drank the milk and ate the corn bread. “I wish I had some bread to take with me,” she thought. “I’ll take my blue cape, and my shoes and white stockings, for I’m sure I ought to wear them on the chaise,” and Anne tiptoed about the room gathering up her clothing. It did not make a very large bundle, even when she decided to take the white muslin dress, and the coral beads. She heard Captain Enos and Aunt Martha go to their chamber, and then, holding “Martha Stoddard” and the bundle in her arms, crept down the narrow stairway. The outer door stood ajar to admit the cool fragrant air, and in a moment Anne was running along the sandy track that led through the little settlement. It was still early, but there was not a light to be seen in any of the small gray houses. The summer sky was filled with stars, and as Anne ran she could see her shadow stretching ahead of her, “as if I were running right over it all the time,” she whispered to “Martha Stoddard.”