“Poor Nobody!” said Richard, falling into his habit of playing with little Anne. “Pretty hard on her to have that name! Where did you get hold of it?”
“She was a little girl stoned to death for being a Christian, in the catacombs,” explained Anne. “They pegged rocks at her, those pagans! Don’t you think it must have been awful to have lived in those times? Either you were a Christian and got killed, boiled in oil, and everything; or else you weren’t, and were terribly wicked. And if you weren’t a noble character you might wobble when you had to choose.”
Unexpectedly to himself, Richard laughed.
“You might, indeed, little Anne! And I was right to invite you to see me. I thought you’d elevate me in mind and spirits! If you were older wouldn’t you come here to help me with my work, read to me, and all that?”
“Like—like to!” Little Anne corrected herself with no small adroitness for a person of her age. “Do you suppose I could now? I’ve tried Peter-two’s typewriter. It doesn’t go fast with one finger, my way, and the letters get kind of snarled before each other and behind each other; not the way they ought to stand in the word, but maybe if I practised lots! I can read ’most anything that isn’t too queer subjec’s; reading never bothers me dreadfully. Maybe you’d spell the worst words?”
“I’ll wait for you, little Anne!” promised Richard. “I’ll have to have somebody else here while I’m waiting, but when you’re older I’ll toss her lightly out of the window and open the door for you, bowing deeply while you enter to take command of my typewriter, my books, my work, and me.”
“Well,” sighed little Anne, “I s’pose you have to wait! But I’ll be eight in a little while and Mother says the older you grow the faster the years whisk by. After my birthday Christmas is awf’ly long coming, and it does seem a good while in winter before Easter, and the last part of school’s kind of slow, but summer goes pretty fast. Maybe it won’t seem so very, very long before I can help you?”
“It won’t!” Richard assured her. “Especially if you come here a great deal in the meantime. Little Anne, is Miss Dallas with your sister?”
“Yes, she is,” little Anne admitted, hesitantly. “She’s right there.”
“Is she well?” asked Richard.