“Of course I shall sort of miss it,” Anna rattled on. “I used to brush it at night, have it all over me, you know, and Rusty would tease me. And I simply loved the feel of that fat braid flopping about. But it’s just as well, for I sha’n’t have so much time now.”
“You look—O, Anna, at this moment you look just as my baby would have looked when she began to run about!” cried Mrs. Langley almost enthusiastically. “But please don’t put on your hat now. You have only just come.”
“I really must. Ma thought I ought not to come at all, but I felt as if I must get it over—about my hair, you know.”
“Then you’re staying at home,” remarked Mrs. Langley with her occasional acuteness as to the present moment. “When do you go back to Miss Penny?”
The girl hesitated. “Not for some little time, Mrs. Langley.”
It would have seemed that Mrs. Langley must have asked the desired question. But the invalid was thinking of herself.
“O Anna, how very nice! You won’t be nearly so busy, then, and can get over here oftener. I wish you would come regularly in the middle of the week, too. Can you?” she asked promptly.
Anna sighed. “The fact is, I’m going to be a heap busier—that’s why I’m staying at home,” she returned obscurely. “But Mrs. Langley, some of the ladies would just love to drop in to see you.”
“Anna Miller, I don’t know what you are thinking of,” Mrs. Langley complained feebly, falling back in her chair. “I have been an invalid since my baby died. I couldn’t endure seeing anyone.”
“You see me.”