“No,” was all Anne durst say.
“Poor Nan, how dreary it must have looked to you last year!”
“I am afraid I wrote very complaining letters!”
“Not complaining, but a direful little effort at content, showing the more piteously, because involuntarily, what a mistake I had made.”
“No, no mistake. Indeed, Miles, it was not. Nothing else would have cured me of the dreadful uncharitableness which was the chief cause of my unhappiness, and if I had not been so forlorn, I should never have seen how good and patient your mother was with me. Yes, I mean it. I read over my old diary and saw how tiresome and presumptuous I was, and how wonderfully she bore with me, and so did Julius and Rosamond, while all the time I fancied them—no Christians.”
“Ah! you child! You know I would never have done it if I had known you were to be swamped among brides. At any rate, this poor old place doesn’t look so woefully dismal and hateful to you now.”
“It could not, where you are, and where I have so many to know and love.”
“You can bear the downfall of our Bush schemes?”
“Your duty is here now.”
“Are you grieved, little one?”