All this laughing and light nonsense between them, did for her what a season of prayer and serious discussion of their situation could not have accomplished. Anna felt, with a sudden sense of comfort and release, that this new relation was not exclusively a solemn religious ordinance, but a dear human companionship, the joyousness of simple, upright hearts, and the sympathy of kindred minds.
CHAPTER XIII
Now die the dream, or come the wife,
The past is not in vain,
For wholly as it was your life
Can never be again,
My dear,
Can never be again.
—W. E. Henley.
At Anna’s earnest request, Keith Burgess consented that their engagement should be announced to no one save his mother until spring. Mally observed the regularity of Keith’s weekly letters, and attempted to tease Anna into acknowledging that there was “something in it”; but Anna’s dignity, which on occasion had its effect even upon Mally’s vivacious self-confidence, ended this line of attack in short order. A few weeks after Keith left Burlington Anna received the following note:—