“And you would have me go through all that for a baby, Anna Miller?”
“Never. Never in the world. Only—you might do it for other reasons. Mr. Langley might like it,” Anna suggested timidly.
His wife was apparently surprised, perhaps startled. As she hadn’t thought of Mr. Langley’s being handsome until Anna recalled it to her mind, so it would not have occurred to her that her personal appearance could be of moment to him.
“Why don’t you surprise him?” the girl suggested eagerly. “Pretend you want a tooth pulled or—why need he know about it at all until it’s done? He’s out so much it would be dead easy.”
“The excitement would kill me,” remarked Mrs. Langley.
“Then I shouldn’t think about it,” said Anna quite as decidedly. “After all, lots of women look older than their husbands. Ma doesn’t, but Mrs. Mudge does and Mrs. Graham—Mabel’s mother—and—no end of others.”
Mrs. Langley had nothing to say but her silence seemed eloquent—fiercely eloquent to Anna, and she took leave hastily, promising to drop in again on Saturday. As she hurried home, she said to herself it was just as if she had sat in a dentist’s chair all afternoon and ached all over now.
That night as she lay in bed, she said to herself that that was the end of everything. And she feared that she was more relieved than disappointed. It would be cruelly hard to part with the baby and her heart leaped at the thought of keeping him always. And she owned to her innermost heart that she should be glad of a rest from going to the parsonage. She would have more time for Joe, Junior, and for Alice. She and Alice could enjoy him together, and—dear me, she had quite forgotten those absurd rumours about Alice! She must do something at once.
She was sincerely sorry so far as Mr. Langley was concerned. But she had done her level best. She would have given him the baby though it had half killed her, but she had failed to ‘put it over’. She must always be sorry for that part of it, for most likely he would grow old with a vengeance now and she would be obliged to sit by and watch him going headlong down hill. Well, and she was sorry for Mrs. Langley, too. Somehow, she seemed to have a certain affection for her—a queer, maternal sort of affection as if a downy yellow chick wanted to mother and brood an ugly old hen. If only someone had taken her earlier!
The next day was a day of profound discomfort. But on Wednesday, a note was brought to the Hollow from the parsonage asking Anna to come to see Mrs. Langley on Saturday week at two o’clock and bring the baby with her. Consternation seized upon her, and settled into despair. But she felt constrained, and before night sent back word that they would come.