“Mind! Of course I would mind, Anna Miller! I—I never could get through it!”
“Then I suppose I shall have to see him myself,” remarked Anna tentatively.
“Anna, Mr. Langley is an overworked man,” said his wife rather surprisingly. “He has a great deal to do as chairman of the school committee, besides all his church business. Don’t go to him with any such thing as that. And—O Anna, don’t say anything more about it to me. Don’t mention the matter at all when you come next Saturday—or Wednesday, if you can come on Wednesday. I’m all upset.”
CHAPTER X
IN the confusion and excitement which prevailed at the two houses in the South Hollow in which this narrative is concerned, Alice Lorraine’s secret perturbation either remained unnoticed or was attributed to the cause which affected them all. But very shortly Mrs. Lorraine, who had come out of her shell almost unbelievably in her week of companionship with Miss Penny, so that now in the crisis she was a very tower of strength not only to Miss Penny but to the Miller household as well, began to be greatly troubled by her daughter’s demeanour. She had rejoiced at the manner in which the girl had bloomed under Anna’s influence, and had been amazed not only at her capacity for learning and power of adaptability but at the generous warmth and sweetness of her nature. She had believed that a real transformation had taken place. Wherefore she was the more disappointed to discover that, at a moment of crisis, Alice really wasn’t the useful, helpful, sympathetic, understanding girl she had seemed. Anna’s arrival, shorn of her wonderful hair and accompanied by the strange, unattractive, almost uncanny baby, had upset Miss Penny’s household and all but devastated the Millers’. And Alice, who might have cheered the former immensely and have been of great service in restoring equanimity to the other, seemed completely unstrung by the excitement and a subject rather than a source of aid.
On Saturday morning, when she caught sight of Alice, who supposed herself alone, wringing her hands as she stood by a window of the living-room looking north, Mrs. Lorraine sighed and said to herself, in Anna’s expressive phrase, that it seemed to be ‘up to’ her. And summoning all her powers, some of which had been awakened of late and others which had lain dormant almost all her life, Henrietta Lorraine started in good earnest to bring some sort of order out of chaos.
She began with Miss Penny. It did not take long to reconcile that philosophical and optimistic little lady to the loss of the yard of silken tresses; and after a bit Mrs. Lorraine convinced her that Anna would soon pick up again now that she was at home, would regain at least as many pounds as she seemed to have lost, and would lose the hurt, mournful look that close association with death in such sad circumstances had left in her merry eyes. Moreover, the care of the baby need not fall wholly upon her. There were plenty of people about to help.
“The fact is, Mrs. Lorraine, Anna knows of people that will take the child,” Miss Penny owned. “That’s the queer part of it—she wanted a baby for these very people. Of course, she wouldn’t have had—but after this afternoon—it’s Saturday, you know—I can probably tell you all about it. And—O Mrs. Lorraine, I hope you won’t feel that you must leave me right away. I have enjoyed having you here so much. And it is such a relief to have an older person to talk to now all this has happened. Dear me! it’s almost like having Reuben back—and I have only known you a week.”
Mrs. Lorraine smiled. “We will stay as long as you are alone, Miss Penny,” she assured her. “There is nothing to call us back after all to that bare little cottage.”
“Then—O Mrs. Lorraine, why not spend the winter with me?” Miss Penny cried eagerly. “It would make me so happy. You could have a separate sitting-room, if you liked and—O, you would be here Christmas to see Reuben! And Anna ought to be at home while Rusty’s away, anyhow. It is so hard on her mother lending her to me. I feel troubled about it all the time—and yet, I cannot get on alone. And of course I would pay Alice just as I do Anna so that it needn’t make any difference and you can do your embroidery as well here as—O Mrs. Lorraine, we could get back my other cow and make butter! We both love to do it and I am sure you could make more money in that way and—O don’t say no! Dear me! I wish Mr. Langley would come in!”