“Mother, my dearest, there’s something dreadful upstairs!” Mrs. Berkley dropped into a chair.
“Anne! What?” she gasped.
“It’s Anne. Not the old Anne, the middle-aged Anne—no, she isn’t, she’s young, but——”
“Miss Dallas,” suggested her mother, patiently striving to make little Anne realize that all her friends were not at the Christian-name age of equality with her.
Anne nodded. “She’s cried and cried! I really didn’t know what to do about it! We had what to do when people faint; in school, you know, but she didn’t faint. Kit was here and they got to telling each other how they loved——”
“Anne! Anne, my dear child!” protested Mrs. Berkley.
“Mother, it’s the truth and nothing else! Isn’t it fearful?” Little Anne had not been sure how to regard what had happened till she derived from her mother’s horrified face a sense that it was shocking.
“Kit wanted her just to kiss him quick, but Anne wouldn’t. She kept saying she didn’t know a thing about it before, and ‛no, no, no,’ and ‛Richard!’ She told him to think of Richard—that’s Mr. Latham, Mother—and how splendid he is, and how well he likes Anne. And Kit said it was more ’portant about the way they loved each other than Mr. Latham, but Anne wouldn’t stand for it ’tall. She kind of got going, you know, Mother! Her nice soft voice that sounds like a sealskin muff got real high and funny, sort of splitted. And she cried awful! Right on my shoulder, Mother! And I told Kit he’d better run along for now, because he made her feel upset, badly upset! So he went. And I telephoned Joan, not till she’d cried till I thought she’d die, and now she’s upstairs with Joan, telling her and asking her what she thinks. She didn’t know I knew all about it, Mother; please don’t tell her; she might rather not,” wise little Anne ended her story.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Berkley. “What a misfortune! If only Mr. Latham weren’t all that he is, or Kit so nice! What shall we do?”
“If you ask me, Mother,” said little Anne. “I’d let me take Anne up a cup of tea.”