“Ann,” she said one day, “you must go to school.”
“Why?” Ann naturally asked. She was a conscientious little student and extremely happy with the governess who came daily to instruct her.
“You study and learn splendidly, Ann, but you must have—have children in your life. You’ll be queer.”
“I’ve got Bobbie, and now Billy.”
“Ann, do not argue. When Billy is old enough to go to school he is going, without a word! I’ve been too weak with you, Ann—you’ll understand by and by.”
The new tone quelled any desire on Ann’s part to insist further; she was rather awed by this attitude. So, with a lofty, detached air Miss Ann went to school. At first she imbibed knowledge under protest, much as she might have eaten food she disliked but which she believed was good for her. Then certain aspects of the new experience attracted and awakened her. From the mass of things she ought to know, she clutched at things she wanted to know. From the girls who shared her school hours, she selected congenial spirits and worshipped them, while the others, for her, did not exist.
“She’s so intense,” sighed Lynda; “she’s just courting suffering. She lavishes everything on them she loves and grieves like one without hope when things go against her.”
“She’s the most dramatic little imp.” Truedale laughed reminiscently as he spoke—he had seen Ann in two or three school performances. “I shouldn’t wonder if she had genius.”
Betty looked serious when she heard this. “I hope not!” was all she said, and from then on she watched Ann with brooding eyes; she urged Lynda to keep her much out of doors in the companionship of Bobbie and Billy who were normal to a relieving extent. Ann played and enjoyed the babies—she adored Billy and permitted him to rule over her with no light hand—but when she could, she read poetry and talked of strange, imaginative things with the few girls in whose presence she became rapt and reverent.
Brace was the only one who took Ann as a joke.