“The grocer still trusts us,” said Mrs. Carroll; “besides, he has been paid. Eddy, dear, you must not speak so to your aunt. Run out, if you have finished your luncheon, and ask your father when he is going to drive.”
Carroll had not gone, as usual, to the City that day.
Mrs. Carroll and Anna rose from the table and went into the den on the left of the hall.
“You must not mind the children speaking so, Anna, dear,” Mrs. Carroll said. “They would fly at me just the same if they thought I had said anything to hurt Arthur.”
“I don't mind, Amy,” Anna replied, dully. She threw herself upon the divan with its Oriental rug, lying flat on her back, with her hands under her head and her eyes fixed upon a golden maple bough which waved past the window opposite. She looked very ill. She was quite pale, and her eyes had a strange, earnest depth in dark hollows.
Mrs. Carroll looked a little more serious than was her wont as she sat in the willow rocker and swayed slowly back and forth. “I suppose,” she said, after a pause, “that it will end in our moving away from Banbridge.”
“I suppose so,” Anna replied, listlessly.
“You don't mind going, do you, Anna, dear?”
“I mind nothing,” Anna Carroll said. “I am past minding.”
Mrs. Carroll looked at her with a bewildered sympathy. “Why, Anna, dear, what is the matter?” she said.