At the mention of Henry's mother Anna Belle colored again. A question trembled on her lips, but she said nothing, and went about setting the table in a listless, absent-minded way.
Her mother was watching her furtively, and a pang went through her heart as she noticed how thin the girl's hands were, and how she trifled with the food on her plate.
"Pinin' away right before my eyes," she thought. "I'm glad I went to see Mrs. Martin. I've done all I could, anyway."
After the meal was over, Anna Belle, at her mother's second bidding, got out the embroidered gown and bent over the tracery of leaves and flowers. Mrs. Williams went up-stairs, presently returning with a long, narrow box of some dark wood.
"You've heard me speak of your Aunt Matilda," she said, seating herself and folding her hands over the box. "Well, this box and the things in it belonged to her, and when she died, she willed it to you, because she hadn't any children of her own, and you were the only girl in the family. I've been intendin' for some time to give it to you, and there's no time like to-day." She opened the box, took out a roll of shining silken tissue such as comes from the looms of the Orient, and threw its soft folds across her daughter's lap. Then from the scented darkness of the treasure box she drew out a bertha and sleeves of filmy lace and laid them on the silk.
"That lace cost a small fortune," she observed. "Your Uncle Harvey was a merchant, and whenever he went to the East to buy his goods, he'd bring your Aunt Matilda a fine present. This lace was the last thing he ever brought her, and—poor thing!—she didn't live to wear it."
Anna Belle had dropped her work on the floor and was fingering the lace and silk in a rapture of admiration.
"O Mother," she breathed, "I never saw anything so beautiful! Is it really mine?"
She shook out the folds of silk, gathered them in her hands, and held them off to note their graceful fall. She laid the bertha across her shoulders and ran to a mirror, laughing at the effect of the costly lace over the striped gingham; she pushed the sleeves of her dress up to her elbows and slipped the lace sleeves over her bare, slender arms. Her eyes gleamed with excitement, her lips were parted in a smile of happy girlhood, and the mother, watching with quiet satisfaction, read the thought in the girl's heart.
"Be careful, Anna Belle," she warned, "you'll wrinkle the goods. Here, fold it this way and lay it smooth in your trunk. You may not need it now, but some day it will come in handy."