Old maids have their little thoughts; why not?
On the present occasion, as I have said, Miss Anne sat in "the blue chamber." She was paler than usual, and her Xantippe lips were closed more firmly together. The thread of her thoughts seemed no smoother than the thread between her fingers, beside breaking which she had broken six of Hemming's best drilled-eyed needles. At length, pushing the stool from beneath her feet, she threw down her work and strode impatiently up and down the apartment.
"To be balked after serving this Leah's apprenticeship, by a baby! and by that baby! I could love it for its likeness to him, did it not stand in my way. It was such doll faces as that baby's mother's which could fascinate Vincent, hey?—soulless, passionless little automatons. Ye gods! and how I have loved him, let these sunken eyes and mottled tresses bear witness," and Miss Anne looked at herself in the glass. "That is all past now; thank heaven, that secret dies with me. Who would ever suspect me of falling in love?" and Miss Anne laughed hysterically. "And now that hope died out, that baby is to come between me and my expected fortune!
"Simple Chloe! She little thought, when she repeated to me what she called 'her young mistress's crazy ravings,' that I could 'find a method in that madness.' Love is sharp-sighted; so is policy. That baby shall never come here. It should not, at any rate, for the mother's sake, pretty little fool!
"Madame will 'adopt' the baby, forsooth! She will fill the house with bibs and pinafores, and install me as head nurse, and to that child! All my fine castles to be knocked down by a baby's puny hand! We shall see.
"That old dotard, to adopt a baby at her time of life, when she ought to be thinking of her shroud."
"Ah, Anne, you there," said a voice at the door, "and busy as usual?"
"Yes, dear madame, work for you is only pastime."