“That is good to hear. I shall enjoy the letter after I get ready.”
How good it was to have mother around! Ann helped her hang up her wraps and extra garments, brought in one good-sized grip. She flew around to straighten the room, patting up the pillows on the couch, putting the books on the shelves and clearing the table, whisking the cover off from the dresser and putting on a fresh one before her mother should be ready to fix her hair, dusting the table and the rounds of the chairs, neglected for several busy days.
“How do you think you can get along, Mrs. Sterling, without a maid?” asked Ann, when her mother at last began to loosen her long thick hair ready for its combing.
“Never having been without one,” replied Mrs. Sterling, “it will be difficult! Perhaps I can’t quite equal the style of Adeline’s coiffures, but I think that I can manage.”
“How does it seem, Mother? I didn’t dare ask you at Grandmother’s, but does it seem natural there, or have you been away so long that it is hard to fall into the ways again? You seemed perfectly at home, and I would have thought that you had always had Adeline from your manner with her.”
“It was strange at first, Ann, though one naturally knows what to do in the home where she has lived so many years. And since your father and you have been away, I could almost fancy that it had all been a dream. That was one reason that I came. I wanted to see you so much. I don’t want it a dream, you see!”
“I’m no dream, Mother, and I’m glad that you feel that way about us,—though I must say that I have never been worried about losing your affection.”
“That could not happen, my child, under any circumstances.”
“No matter what I did?”
“No matter what you do. But I hope that you will always choose to do right!”