“Ann,” she said, “promise that you’ll never do anything wicked again—promise you’ll never make your baby ashamed of you.”
“No, I won’t; I’ve had enough of all that—you’ll be sure to send a pattering with a yoke?” inquired Ann eagerly.
Poor Ann! Her one virtue of neatness was for the moment degraded to a vice; she so thoroughly slighted the spirit of Mabella’s speech. But Mabella, out of the depths of her motherly experience, pardoned this.
“Yes, I will send the nicest patterns I have,” she said.
“Soon?”
“Soon—and Ann—you’ll come to church next Sunday?”
Ann began to whimper.
“Oh, I hate t’ be a poppyshow! and all the girls do stare so, and——”
“Ann,” said Mabella pleadingly, “you’ll come?”
“Yes, I’ll come, Missus Lansing, being as you want me to,” then another swift change of mood overtook the poor, variable creature.