Margaret said nothing. She leaned back, and, for once, her face was actually contracted with thought to the possible detriment of its smooth beauty.
A clock in the house struck, and at the same time Maida and Adelaide raced up the steps, followed by gleeful calls from two little boys on the sidewalk.
“Where have you been?” asked Margaret. Then she said without waiting for a reply, “If Martha Wallingford would come, I should prefer that to Lydia Greenway.”
Maida and Adelaide, flushed and panting, and both with mouths full of candy, glanced at their mother, then Maida chased Adelaide into the house, their blue skirts flitting out of sight like blue butterfly wings.
Annie Eustace rose. She had noticed that neither Maida nor Adelaide had greeted her, and thought them rude. She herself had been most carefully trained concerning manners of incoming and outgoing. She, however, did not care. She had no especial love for children unless they were small and appealing because of helplessness.
“I must go,” she said. “It is six o'clock, supper will be ready.” She glanced rather apprehensively as she spoke at the large white house, not two minutes' walk distant across the street.
“How very delightful it is to be as punctual as your people are,” said Margaret. “Good-bye, Annie.” She spoke abstractedly, and Annie felt a little hurt. She loved Margaret, and she missed her full attention when she left her. She passed down the walk between Margaret's beautifully kept Japanese trees, and gained the sidewalk. Then a sudden recollection filled her with dismay. She had promised her grandmother to go to the post-office before returning. An important business letter was expected. Annie swept the soft tail of her muslin into a little crushed ball, and ran, her slender legs showing like those of a young bird beneath its fluff of plumage. She realized the necessity of speed, of great speed, for the post-office was a quarter of a mile away, and the Eustace family supped at five minutes past six, with terrible and relentless regularity. Why it should have been five minutes past instead of upon the stroke of the hour, Annie had never known, but so it was. It was as great an offence to be a minute too early as a minute too late at the Eustace house, and many a maid had been discharged for that offence, her plea that the omelet was cooked and would fall if the meal be delayed, being disregarded. Poor Annie felt that she must hasten. She could not be dismissed like the maid, but something equally to be dreaded would happen, were she to present herself half a minute behind time in the dining-room. There they would be seated, her grandmother, her Aunt Harriet, and her Aunt Jane. Aunt Harriet behind the silver tea service; Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserves; her grandmother behind the silver butter dish, and on the table would be the hot biscuits cooling, the omelet falling, the tea drawing too long and all because of her. There was tremendous etiquette in the Eustace family. Not a cup of tea would Aunt Harriet pour, not a spoon would Aunt Jane dip into the preserves, not a butter ball would her grandmother impale upon the little silver fork. And poor Hannah, the maid, white aproned and capped, would stand behind Aunt Harriet like a miserable conscious graven image. Therefore Annie ran, and ran, and it happened that she ran rather heedlessly and blindly and dropped her mussy little package of fancy work, and Karl von Rosen, coming out of the parsonage, saw it fall and picked it up rather gingerly, and called as loudly as was decorous after the flying figure, but Annie did not hear and Von Rosen did not want to shout, neither did he want, or rather think it advisable, to run, therefore he followed holding the linen package well away from him, as if it were a disagreeable insect. He had never seen much of Annie Eustace. Now and then he called upon one of her aunts, who avowed her preference for his religious denomination, but if he saw Annie at all, she was seated engaged upon some such doubtfully ornamental or useful task, as the specimen which he now carried. Truth to say, he had scarcely noticed Annie Eustace at all. She had produced the effect of shrinking from observation under some subtle shadow of self-effacement. She was in reality a very rose of a girl, loving and sweet, and withal wonderfully endowed; but this human rose, dwelt always for Karl von Rosen, in the densest of bowers through which her beauty and fragrance of character could not penetrate his senses. Undoubtedly also, although his masculine intelligence would have scouted the possibility of such a thing, Annie's dull, ill-made garb served to isolate her. She also never came to church. That perfect little face with its expression of strange insight, must have aroused his attention among his audience. But there was only the Aunt Harriet Eustace, an exceedingly thin lady, present and always attired in rich blacks. Karl von Rosen to-day walking as rapidly as became his dignity, in pursuit of the young woman, was aware that he hardly felt at liberty to accost her with anything more than the greeting of the day. He eyed disapprovingly the parcel which he carried. It was a very dingy white, and greyish threads dangled from it. Von Rosen thought it a most unpleasant thing, and reflected with mild scorn and bewilderment concerning the manner of mind which could find amusement over such employment, for he divined that it was a specimen of feminine skill, called fancy work.
Annie Eustace ran so swiftly with those long agile legs of hers that he soon perceived that interception upon her return, and not overtaking, must ensue. He did not gain upon her at all, and he began to understand that he was making himself ridiculous to possible observers in windows. He therefore slackened his pace, and met Annie upon her return. She had a letter in her hand and was advancing with a headlong rush, and suddenly she attracted him. He surrendered the parcel. “Thank you very much,” said Annie, “but I almost wish you had not found it.”
Von Rosen stared at her. Was she rude after all, this very pretty girl, who was capable of laughter. “You would not blame me if you had to embroider daisies on that dreadful piece of linen,” said Annie with a rueful glance at the dingy package.