“Do you mean it?” said Annie. She went up to Mrs. Acheson. The widow held out her hand, which Annie clasped.
“Do you really mean it?” continued Annie.
“I do, my dear child. I wish you would tell me what really troubles you.”
“I long to confide everything to you,” replied Annie, “but I dare not; please don’t ask me. Let me be happy while I am here, and don’t be—oh, don’t be too kind!”
“What does the poor child mean?” thought Mrs. Acheson. She now laid her hand on Annie’s shoulder, drew her to her side, and kissed her tenderly on her forehead.
“I am drawn to you because you are a motherless girl,” she said; “and whenever you feel that you can give me your confidence I shall be only too happy to receive it, and also, Annie, my dear, to respect it. I am an old woman, and have seen much of life; perhaps I could counsel you if you are in any difficulty.”
“No, no; it may not be,” said Annie in a whisper which nearly choked her.
“Very well; we will say no more at present. I am going now to give directions about the carriage.”
At eleven o’clock an open landau was at the door, and Mrs. Acheson and Annie went for their drive. It was a lovely summer’s day, and Regent’s Park looked its best. Long years afterward Annie Colchester remembered that drive. The delightful motion of the easy carriage in which she was seated, the soft breezes on her cheeks, Mrs. Acheson’s kind and intelligent conversation returned to her memory again and again. Oh, why was life so different for her to what it was for other girls! Oh, that she could confide in Mrs. Acheson! But then the knowledge that this good woman pitied her because she imagined that she was suffering from a girlish depression, or some other equally unimportant contretemps, caused her heart to rise with wild rebellion in her breast.
“If I could tell her the truth—the truth—would not her ears tingle and her heart beat,” thought Annie to herself. “Good as she is, she is not the person to help me in a great calamity of this sort. In her quiet, sheltered, prosperous life, what can she know of sorrows like mine? Oh, Rupert, why were you and I left alone in the world, and why—why did you turn out bad, and why do I love you so much?”