"Don't you think, Mrs. Martin,"—there was an anxious, beseeching note in the speaker's voice,—"don't you think that you and me might manage to live together? Your house is big enough for two, and it's a double house, with a hall runnin' through the middle, so you can live on one side and me on the other. And if you'll let me come and live in one side of your house, I'll deed my house to Henry and Anna Belle, and they can get married with a clear conscience. You and me can be company for each other, and we've each got enough money to supply our wants; and I'll keep house on my side of the hall, and you'll keep house on your side, and there's no need of our ever fallin' out or interferin' with each other."
There! the deed was done, and the doer of the deed, pale with consternation over her own daring, sat waiting a reply.
But no reply came. Apparently Mrs. Martin had not heard her words, for she was looking beyond her visitor with the dreamy gaze of one who sees, but not with the eye of flesh. Was she considering the question, or was her silence a rebuke to an officious meddler? Mrs. Williams' heart was beating as it used to beat on Friday afternoons when she stood up to read her composition before the school, and she tingled from head to foot with a flush of shame.
"I don't know what you think of me for makin' such a proposition to you," she stammered. "You'll never know what it costs me to say what I've said, and I never could have said it, if it hadn't been for that nightgown put away in the bottom drawer, and the look in Anna Belle's eyes."
Still Mrs. Martin did not speak. The piteous humiliation in her visitor's eyes deepened. She must make one more effort to break the ice of that cruel silence.
"It's not for myself; I hope you understand that. There's no reason why I should want to give up my home, but it's for Anna Belle. A mother'll do anything for her child, you know."
Mrs. Martin's eyes were fixed gravely on her visitor's face.
"Yes, I do know," she said, speaking with sudden resolution. "It's all as plain as day. I don't know what Henry will say, when he finds out that a stranger had to tell his mother what her duty was. I ought to have seen it long ago just as you did." Her voice faltered, and there were tears in her eyes.
The embarrassment and distress on Mrs. Williams' face changed to joyful relief. She drew a quick breath and laid instant hold on her wonted power of speech.
"You're not to blame at all," she consoled eagerly. "If Anna Belle was your child, you'd have seen it just as I did. A son's here and there and everywhere, but a daughter's right in the house with you, and you can read her heart like an open book. That's how I happened to know before you did. My goodness! Is that clock strikin' eleven?" She rose with an air of deep contrition, "Here I've taken up nearly all your mornin'. But then, what's a mornin's work by the side of your child's happiness?" On the threshold she paused and stood irresolute for a few seconds.