“Disrespectful to your uncle! Bringing his dark hairs in sorrow to the gray!” growled Win, stalking after the others to the garden.
Mary ran out to look for Anne, whom she knew she should find at that hour helping Abbie get the supper dishes out of the way.
“Anne, Anne dear, Anne Kennington!” she called as she came.
“Mary, lass, what is it?” Anne answered, coming to meet her.
She was a tall Englishwoman of about thirty-five, with the brightness of her youthful brilliant colouring beginning to fade. The red in her cheeks was hardening as the whiteness around it browned, but her eyes still flashed fires out of their depth of blue, and her hair was almost black. She moved with a free, indifferent swing as if she had been born under the Declaration of Independence instead of the English queen. But her devotion to the Garden girls partook of the loyalty of a subject, while it was, at the same time, all maternal.
“We have a guest for the night, a nice boy a year older than I am, who came to Vineclad looking for work. Florimel met him and brought him home with her to see Mr. Moulton. Is the little room in order?” asked Mary.
“Little room, and big room, and middle-sized room, all the guest-rooms are in order,” said Anne, resenting the question. “But staying the night here, Mary? A tramp!”
“Mercy, no! A gentleman and very really!” Mary set her right. “His home was burned, his father was killed in the fire, and, instead of being left well-off, he had nothing. He is from Massachusetts, he didn’t say where; his name is Mark Walpole. Win thinks he is fine—it isn’t merely girls’ judgment.”
“And Winchester Garden is only a big boy; what does he know of reading character? Though he would be a good judge of breeding,” Anne conceded. “I suppose a night of him won’t ruin the place, though what with Florimel bringing home that dog and now a boy, there’s no telling what the end will be! Of course I knew he was at supper; he looks a nice sort; I’ll grant him that. Go on, Mary; Mr. and Mrs. Moulton are this minute crossing over. I’ll see that the ewer is filled in the boy’s room, and more than that it doesn’t need done to it; that, and a pair of towels.”
“There’s no housekeeper like our Anne! You can’t catch her napping,” laughed Mary, hastening out to help receive her guardian and his wife.