“What do you think, Mrs. Miller! This is the first time that Mrs. Langley has felt any interest whatever in anyone or anything since we lost our little Ella May,” he said in a sort of hushed wonderment. “You will spare Anna for a little while, won’t you? I’ll bring her back shortly safe and sound.”
When Anna returned to Miss Penny’s at tea time, she found her in a state of almost wild excitement.
“O Anna, do sit down and tell me all about it,” she cried. “For the first time in my life I was glad—no, I can’t say I was glad, but I wasn’t really disappointed that Mr. Langley didn’t come in. Not that he thinks it wrong, being Sunday, and anyhow I really am an old lady and won’t be getting out to service many years more. But he had the Smith’s horse, you know. It was nice of him to bring you home, but of course he would. He thought you were here—that was why he stopped. And to think of Mrs. Langley’s asking for you all of her own accord. Dear me, dear me, what does she look like and did you have a nice time?”
“Not exactly what you would call slick,” replied Anna in her droll way that cloaked her weariness even for herself. “There was nothing lively enough about it to break the Sabbath. Our conversation was confined to the subject of tombstones.”
“O Anna, my dear!” said Miss Penny in mild reproof as if it were sacrilegious to speak lightly of such things.
Anna related briefly the occasion of her first visit and described the restoration of the marble image in the cemetery.
“Bless its little heart!” cried Miss Penny who was as enthusiastic as Anna in her love of animals. “It must be sweet. I wonder I never thought of going to look at it on Memorial day. I used to go to the cemetery regularly every year until I got so lame.”
“We’ll drive the pony up there some day. It’s not far to walk from the gate,” Anna said.
She dropped into a rocking chair, let her yellow head fall wearily back against the cushion and closed her eyes.
“I had to tell her of it over and over and over,” she said presently, raising her lashes pensively.