“How very kind,” said Anna, warmly.
The room was, indeed, in its own manner, grave and subdued, a luxurious parlour, with good pictures, handsome hangings, and soft, pale-tinted carpet.
“I must go down at once and tell the dear mother how we thank her,” said Keith, and Anna, left alone, returned to the bedroom and began to remove her travelling hat.
Jane was beside her at once, giving unneeded assistance.
“Shall I unpack for you directly?” she asked, looking at Keith’s small trunk, which was quite adequate to Anna’s few belongings, added to her husband’s. Anna felt her colour deepen as she declined the offered help, and sat down with a little sigh in a great easy-chair. But she submitted perforce when the maid knelt at her feet, and, quite as a matter of course, removed her shoes. It was the first time since babyhood that this office had been performed for Anna by other hands than her own, and she felt all her veins tingle with a shy reluctance, but sat motionless.
Rising, Jane looked about, Anna thought with a shade of dissatisfaction that there was thus far so little to be done, so scanty a display of the small belongings of luxury.
“When you are ready to dress for dinner,” she said, with a touch of coldness, “I will come if you will just ring the bell. The bell is here,” and she indicated the green twisted cord and heavy silk tassel at the head of the bed. “Mrs. Burgess said she could spare me to wait on you for what you needed to-night,” she added.
“Thank you,” said Anna, gently, but with the quiet unconscious loftiness of her own reserve. “Mrs. Burgess is very good to think of it, but I am accustomed to caring for myself, and so I shall not need to trouble you.”
“Very well, that will be just as suits you, ma’am. I should be pleased to wait on you any time Mrs. Burgess doesn’t need me. Dinner will be at six o’clock, then, if you please.” Thus saying the maid withdrew.
“Keith,” said Anna, with a perplexed countenance, when a few moments later he joined her, “I find I ought to dress for dinner, but I have nothing better to wear than this black gown. You ought to have told me, dear.”