"Something about Anna?" said the Squire indignantly.
"Oh, no, not about our Anna," protested Mrs. Bartlett: "Why, she is the best kind of a girl; we are all devoted to her."
"That's just the saddest part of it, I says to myself when I heard. How can I ever make up my mind to tell them pore, dear Bartletts, who took her in, and has been treating her like one of their own family ever since? It will come hard on, them, I sez, but that ought not to deter me from my duty."
"Look here, Marthy," thundered the Squire, "if you've got anything to say about that girl, out with it——"
"Well, land sake—you needn't be so touchy; she ain't kin to you, and you might thank your lucky stars she ain't."
"Well, what is it, Marthy?" interposed Mrs. Bartlett. "Anna'll be down in a minute."
"Well, you know, I have been sewin' down to Warren Center this last week, and Maria Thomson, from Belden, was visiting there, and naturally we all got to talking 'bout folks up this way, and that girl Anna Moore's name was mentioned, and I'm blest if Maria Thomson didn't recognize her from my description.
"I was telling them 'bout the way she came here last June, pale as a ghost, and how she said her mother had just died and she'd been sick, and they knew right off who she was."
Marthy loved few things as she did an interested audience. It was her meat and drink.
"Well, she didn't call herself Moore in Belden, though that was her mother's name—she called herself Lennox," Marthy grinned. "She was one of those married ladies who forgot their wedding rings."