“Yes? For long?” asked Mrs. Berkley. Her eyes and her wits were working fast; Kit looked badly perturbed.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Berkley. It all depends; I may not go,” Kit said.
“Depends on Helen Abercrombie’s going,” Mrs. Berkley supplemented him in her thoughts. “She appeared well here, but Joan didn’t like her, and I couldn’t help seeing that she meant to marry this boy.”
“Then you must surely stay to dinner; tramping clothes are all right when they are not what might be called worn in malice! We like you better than evening garments, Kit. Come, Anne!” she said aloud.
Upstairs with little Anne, Mrs. Berkley had difficulty in restraining the questions that she wanted to ask. She made it a rule not to encourage Anne in comments on her elders, to which her precocity and ever-ready interest inclined her, but now her mother cast about in her mind for ways to get Anne’s story without her knowing it.
To her relief, little Anne, emerging from the bathroom, rubbing her thin arms dry with a rotary motion from shoulder to wrist, asked:
“Why should Kit hate to have Miss Abercrombie hunt for four-leafed clovers?”
“Does he?” asked her mother.
“She was kneeling, hunting them, and he looked awful. I thought he was sick. She was almost on his shoes, Mother! I was singing, but I saw him look sick before he heard me. Then he looked for what was singing. Do you suppose he thought ’twas a brownie? Brownies couldn’t sing hymns. Fairies don’t either, do they? I was singing a hymn, that French one. Kit said it was nice. Miss Abercrombie said she was hunting for four-leafed clovers. You’d suppose they wouldn’t be so near Kit’s feet. And she didn’t have any. Kit didn’t want her to hunt ’em, I’m most sure. I couldn’t tell whether he was mad or what. But she got mad, very mad, indeed! She said I ought to read the Bible about Joseph. Did she mean St. Joseph, Mother? He’s in the Bible, isn’t he? ’Course! All about the angel and his dream! Well, I don’t see why they were so queer. She said something about a lady—Mrs. Potfar—or for—or something, how she got what she deserved. I’m ’fraid I don’t know hist’ry very well, Mother. Is that hist’ry?”
“Why, yes. It is ancient and modern history, Anne,” said Mrs. Berkley. She had learned more than she had the least desire to know, and without a word on her part.