“It is all very well for people to talk about firesides, and knitting work, and peaceful eyes of age fixed upon Heavenly homes,” said Annie, “but all old people are not like that. Grandma hates to knit although she does think I should embroider daisies, and she does like to have me play pinocle with her Sunday mornings, when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Jane are out of the way. It is the only chance she has during the whole week you know because neither Aunt Harriet nor Aunt Jane approves of cards, and poor Grandma is so fond of them, it seems cruel not to play with her the one chance she has.”
“I think you are entirely right,” said Von Rosen with grave conviction and he was charmed that the girl regarded him as if he had said nothing whatever unusual.
“I have always been sure that it was right,” said Annie Eustace, “but I would like sometimes to go to church.”
“I really wish you could,” said Von Rosen, “and I would make an especial effort to write a good sermon.”
“Oh,” said Annie, “Aunt Harriet often hears you preach one which she thinks very good.”
Von Rosen bowed. Suddenly Annie's shyness, reserve, whatever it was, seemed to overcloud her. The lovely red faded from her cheeks, the light from her eyes. She lost her beauty in a great measure. She bowed stiffly, saying: “I thank you very much, good evening,” and passed on, leaving the young man rather dazed, pleased and yet distinctly annoyed, and annoyed in some inscrutable fashion at himself.
Then he heard shouts of childish laughter, and a scamper of childish feet, and Maida and Adelaide Edes rushed past, almost jostling him from the sidewalk. Maida carried a letter, which her mother had written, and dispatched to the last mail. And that letter was destined to be of more importance to Von Rosen than he knew.
As for Annie Eustace, whose meeting with Von Rosen had, after her first lapse into the unconsciousness of mirth, disturbed her, as the meeting of the hero of a dream always disturbs a true maiden who has not lost through many such meetings the thrill of them, she hurried home trembling, and found everything just exactly as she knew it would be.
There sat Aunt Harriet perfectly motionless behind the silver tea service, and although the cosy was drawn over the teapot, the tea seemed to be reproachfully drawing to that extent that Annie could hear it. There sat Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserved fruit, with the untouched silver spoon at hand. There sat her grandmother behind the butter plate. There stood Hannah, white capped and white aproned, holding the silver serving tray like a petrified statue of severity, and not one of them spoke, but their silence, their dignified, reproachful silence was infinitely worse than a torrent of invective. How Annie wished they would speak. How she wished that she could speak herself, but she knew better than to even offer an excuse for her tardiness. Well she knew that the stony silence which would meet that would be worse, much worse than this. So she slid into her place opposite her Aunt Jane, and began her own task of dividing into sections the omelet which was quite flat because she was late, and seemed to reproach her in a miserable, low-down sort of fashion.
However, there was in the girl's heart a little glint of youthful joy, which was unusual. She had met Mr. Von Rosen and had forgotten herself, that is at first, and he had looked kindly at her. There was no foolish hope in little Annie Eustace's heart; there would be no spire of aspiration added to her dreams because of the meeting, but she tasted the sweet of approbation, and it was a tonic which she sorely needed, and which inspired her to self-assertion in a childishly naughty and mischievous way. It was after supper that evening, that Annie strolled a little way down the street, taking advantage of Miss Bessy Dicky's dropping in for a call, to slink unobserved out of her shadowy corner, for the Eustaces were fond of sitting in the twilight. The wind had come up, the violent strong wind which comes out of the south, and Annie walked very near the barberry hedge which surrounded Doctor Sturtevant's grounds, and the green muslin lashed against it to its undoing. When Annie returned, the skirt was devastated and Aunt Harriet decreed that it could not be mended and must be given to the poor Joy children. There were many of those children of a degenerate race, living on the outskirts of Fairbridge, and Annie had come to regard them as living effigies of herself, since everything which she had outgrown or injured past repair, fell to them. “There will be enough to make two nice dresses for Charlotte and Minnie Joy,” said Aunt Harriet, “and it will not be wasted, even if you have been so careless, Annie.”