Grandmother nodded simply; then in a moment she began to talk about the flowers she had brought, and how Anne had helped her pick them, and what a comfort Anne and her mother were to her.
“Such good neighbors!” she said. “Such dear, good, kind, neighbors! This place is so full of good people, Miss Taggart.”
“They call me Aunt Betsy,” said the old lady, “and they call you Grandmother, I’m told.”
“Yes,” said Grandmother laughing; “that is my name, isn’t it, Anne?”
Anne says that she had really forgotten that she had ever had any other name.
“We shall be friends, you and I!” said Aunt Betsy; “and you will find good people wherever you look for them, my dear.”
“Oh, yes, surely!” said Grandmother; and they looked at each other again, that quiet understanding look.
I don’t suppose Anne was very much younger than Grandmother, but she felt a whole lifetime between them, and worshipped the older girl with a very real worship. Grandmother took it sweetly and quietly, as she took everything. When Anne brought some offering, the first bride-rose from her bush, or a delicate cake, or a sunset-colored jelly in a glass bowl, Grandmother would thank her affectionately, and admire the gift, and then would say, “But it is too pretty for any well person, my dear. Let us take it quickly to little Kitty who is so suffering with her measles! or to poor old Mr. Peavy, whose rheumatism is bad this week.”
Anne confessed to me that she sometimes wanted to say, “But I made it for you, Grandmother, not for Mr. Peavy!” but I have often thought that Anne was in a manner serving an apprenticeship to Grandmother, and making ready, all unawares, for the life of love and sacrifice that she too was to lead.