“O Mrs. Lorraine! Already? Who told you?” asked the girl eagerly.
“Your father and mother and Frank each told me separately, and Frank and Freddy together. And Miss Penny told me last evening. Mr. Langley told someone and Mr. Phelps heard it at the post office.”
“I’m glad ma told you,” Anna remarked. “She’s beginning to take to him. She kissed him this morning.”
Mrs. Lorraine sighed. Anna had been pale when she came in. Now her cheeks were crimson and her eyes too bright. She was always thin, but to-day her face looked pinched. Anna was second only to Alice herself in Mrs. Lorraine’s heart.
“Anna, I wish you would find a home for that baby or let some of us,” she said anxiously. “The responsibility is too much for you. Many people would be glad to take him, I am sure.”
“Glad! my goodness, they’d jump at the chance!” rejoined Anna. “And well they might. I did think that I would give him away, but I don’t believe now that I could part with him. And it’s different now. The boys are crazy over him and so is pa. And now that ma——”
Mrs. Lorraine perceived that she had taken the wrong tack. She must try again.
“But Anna, having him keeps you from so many things. They really need you in the choir, you know.”
“Alice might sing in the choir. Her voice is better than mine and she knows heaps more about music.”
“Alice wouldn’t go in without you, and her voice really isn’t so sweet. And your mother needs you, Anna. Like most mothers, she has been tied at home for years, and it seems a pity that just as she begins to go about she should lose your companionship. And your school-mates——”