"Yes, she's on the lawn talking to Nora, and Guy is with them, and Mrs. Willis joined them half an hour ago. I was running up to them, but Nora shrieked out to me to keep away. What can be the matter? There seems to be an earthquake everywhere."
"So there is as far as I am concerned," replied Hester. "There is an awful earthquake, and I don't know at the present moment whether I am standing on my head or my heels."
"Dear me, you are on your heels," replied Annie; "but you look rather top-heavy, so do be careful."
"My father is going to marry again in October," continued Hester, "and my future stepmother is coming here on Saturday, and there is a girl called Antonia coming with her—her daughter, and—and Antonia will live at the Grange in the future, and Annie, I cannot realise it; oh, Annie, I cannot bear it."
"You poor darling," said Annie. She put her arm round Hester's neck and kissed her hot cheeks.
"What a horrid old man Sir John is," murmured Annie to herself; "what in the world is he making a goose of himself for?"
Aloud she said in a faint voice, "Oh, I am bitterly sorry for you. I don't know what I'd do to my dear old rough-and-ready father if he dared to give me another mother. And Hetty, Hetty, if these new people are coming on Saturday, must I go away?"
"No, of course not, Annie; it would make me much more wretched even than I am now not to have you in the house; oh, I really don't know how I dare tell Nan; she is so excitable, and Mrs. Martin has put her against stepmothers already."
"It doesn't matter half as much for her," said Annie, "for she will be at school most of the time. Would you like me to tackle her? I think I can get her to behave with outward propriety at least."
"I wish you would tell her," said Hester.