“Not going away? The painful hour of parting is not here yet, surely?”
Anna made a vague and hurried reply.
“Because, you know,” pursued Oliver, lowering his voice to an offensive tone of familiarity, and maliciously mimicking the phraseology of his stepmother’s friends, “we could hardly spare our dear young sister yet; she is becoming really indispensable to us,” and he held out one long hand as if to clasp that of Anna, leering at her repulsively.
Anna rose hurriedly and moved away from him, her heart beating hard with fear and antipathy. To her great relief she heard Gertrude Ingraham’s step in the hall, and Anna, with her face paler than it had been, met her at the door, while Oliver slunk away to a little distance, and appeared to be looking out of a window unconcernedly.
Gertrude Ingraham carried a pocket-book open in her hand, and as she spoke she looked at it, and not at Anna.
“Mamma is so very sorry, and sends her best wishes and hopes for Mr. Burgess’s quick recovery. She hopes you will let her know; and, Miss Mallison,” Gertrude was evidently embarrassed, “mamma says it is such a long and expensive journey, and she wishes you would just take this with you to make everything as comfortable as may be.” And she drew out a crisp twenty-dollar note, which she essayed to put in Anna’s hand.
Anna had not known before that she was proud. She did not know it now, but Gertrude Ingraham did, and was touched with keen compunction. She understood that her mother would have been more successful.
It was only the swift, unconscious protest of Anna’s hand, the pose of her head as she turned to go, and the quiet finality with which she said:—
“Will you thank Mrs. Ingraham for me, and say I did not need it? She is always kind. Good-by.”
A moment later Gertrude watched from the window the slender figure in its faded, scanty black, with the heavy, old-fashioned satchel, passing down the windswept lawn, under the grey and bitter sky.