"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I can be in my own house."
"And your friends—they too will not come?"
"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them."
"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that you should not be so lonely?"
"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived with."
"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?"
"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have some of my nice things too."
"But not your own friends and relations?"
"They have everything they want."
There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She was thinking that this was a queer little person—outside, that is. Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people would call these questions rude.