"And the worst is over—ain't it?"
"To be sure, the very worst. And now don't tell my address to anyone—not to Mr. Sidney or Miss Harriet especially."
"But Miss Harriet——"
"Will only offend her father by coming to see me—you, Ann, won't offend any one very much."
"Only a poor stray like yourself, Mattie—am I?"
"And our hearts don't stray very far from those we have loved, Ann—and never will."
"Ah! she talks like a book almost—the sight of learning that that child got hold on, and the deal of good she does a body," muttered Ann, looking after Mattie through the misty twilight stealing up the street.
"For every one her liked, and every one her loved," wrote Spenser, ages ago, of his heroine—Ann Packet might have quoted the same words, barring all thoughts of Mr. Wesden, whom the force of events had turned aside from Mattie.
Mr. Hinchford liked Mattie; her presence had brightened him up, given a shake to ideas that had been rusting of late.
"She's a quick girl," he muttered, "but she has the most foolish and out-of-the-way thoughts. How she disturbs one—I meant to have asked her seriously, and yet kindly, why she stopped out all night, and offended Mr. Wesden. Odd I should forget that—I don't generally let things slip my memory in that ridiculous fashion. And about that man who called himself her father—why, I forgot that, too!—God bless me! A curious girl—my brother, indeed!—my hard-hearted and unsympathetic brother!"