"Poor soul," said Mrs. Reed pityingly; "I can understand the sort of woman she is. The circumstances of her life have been against her. I feel very interested in all you have told us about these Wyndhams, Andrew, and, like you, I wish we could help them. We'll decide nothing till Christmas, then we'll see what can be done. You must not think me unsympathetic, but—"
"Oh, mother, father couldn't think you that!" Ann broke in. "Why, you're always quite as eager to help people as he is!"
"Yes, indeed," agreed the doctor, "and much wiser about finding out the best mode to set about doing it. Perhaps my plan will not be feasible, but we'll think it over at any rate, and, as I've heard my mother say when she failed to see her way plainly or was doubtful about the wisdom of any step she contemplated taking, 'We'll just set the matter before the Lord and ask His guidance.'"
"How like dear old Granny to say that!" exclaimed Ann, a tender smile lighting up her face. "Oh, father, I wish you could have persuaded her to pay us a visit!"
"She thinks she has become too old to undertake such a long journey, my dear, and I believe she is right; besides, she is more contented in her own home. Elderly people do not care for change like young ones. She knows how welcome she would be here, but she is never so happy anywhere as at Teymouth. You and the little mother shall go and see her in the summer, Ann, if all's well, as usual, but I don't think she herself will ever leave Devonshire again."
"You do not think her ill, father?" Ann asked anxiously.
"No; but naturally her strength is not what it once was. She said to me that she thought the next journey she would make would be to her long home. That will be as God wills; but I saw she did not wish to leave Teymouth, so of course I refrained from urging her to do so."
Ann's eyes, which she shaded with her hand, were misty with tears, for she was most devotedly attached to her grandmother, and the thought that she might be in failing health caused her a pang of deep grief. Every summer she and her mother went to stay with old Mrs. Reed in the little cottage at Teymouth, which she had inhabited since her husband's death. Granny was a true, noble-hearted woman, though in her young days she had been "only a servant" as some people say—it had not been considered derogatory for the daughters of small farmers to be domestic servants then—and had had no education except what life had taught her.
From her the doctor had inherited many of those qualities which had gained him the respect and confidence of all classes in the prosperous Yorkshire town where he had become a successful surgeon and a well-to-do man; and when, nearly fifteen years previously, with his wife's cordial approval, he had called his infant daughter "Ann," it had been with the earnest hope and prayer that she might grow into as sweet and good a woman as the one after whom she was named.
"I am so glad you have been able to pay your mother this visit, Andrew," Mrs. Reed remarked, after a few minutes' silence, "I am sure she must have been delighted to have you to herself for a few days. I often wish that we lived nearer to her."