LADY DISAPPEARS
“We shall reach the tavern in good season for dinner,” said Mr. Freeman, as they drove into the village of Sandwich.
It seemed a very wonderful thing to the little maid from Province Town to drive up to the inn, with its big painted sign swinging from a post near the road, and she took hold of Rose’s hand as if half afraid.
Rose looked down at her little friend with a smiling face.
“Why, Anne,” she said laughingly, “you were not a bit afraid to start off through the woods alone, or to journey with Indians, and here you are trembling because you are going into this little tavern for dinner.”
Anne managed to smile, but she kept a tight clasp on Rose’s hand. It was not that she was frightened, but as she stepped from the chaise she had heard one of the loiterers about the door exclaim, “Look at the child, bareheaded and wearing moccasins,” and her quick glance had comprehended the exchange of smiles; and Anne now felt uncomfortable and realized that she was not suitably dressed to travel in the high chaise. She looked at Rose, with her pretty dress of blue dimity, and white hat with its broad ribbon, her neat shoes and stockings, and realized that there was a great contrast in their appearance. Anne was very silent all through the meal and ate but little. Even Mr. Freeman began to notice that she was very silent and grave, and thought to himself that the little girl might be homesick.
“We can drive to Plymouth this afternoon,” he said, as they finished their dinner. “It is only about twenty miles, and we can get there early in the evening.”
Anne knew all about Plymouth. From the hill in Province Town she had looked across the water to Plymouth, and Uncle Enos had told her that many years ago a band of Pilgrims from England had landed at Province Town, and then sailed on and settled in Plymouth. Uncle Enos had wondered at it, and had shook his head over a people who would willingly settle in any other place than Province Town.
The road now followed the shore very closely, and Rose was interested in watching the boats, and the many flocks of wild sea-birds circling about in the summer air. But Anne leaned back in the corner of the chaise silent and troubled. The more she thought about her lack of all the things that Rose had the more unhappy she became. “They will all be ashamed of me when I get to Boston,” she thought, “and I have no money to buy things, and it will be three weeks or more before my dear father will reach Boston. Oh, dear!” And Anne, for the moment, wished herself back on the Province Town sands where a bareheaded, moccasin-shod little girl could be as happy as the day was long.
The sun had set, and it was in the cool of the early evening when they drove through Plymouth’s main street. They were all tired and quite ready for bed. It seemed a very large town to Anne, with its meeting-houses and stores, but she was glad that it was nearly dark and hoped that no one would notice that she had no hat or sunbonnet.