"And mother took it," Anna said at last, growing more composed.
"Yes, she said she would bring it to you," was Adah's reply.
For several minutes Anna sat looking out upon the snowy landscape, her usually smooth brow wrinkled with thought, and her eyes gleaming with a strange, new light. There was a shadow on her fair face, a grieved, injured expression, as if her mother's treachery had hurt her cruelly. She knew the letter was withheld, and her first impulse was to demand it at once. But Anna dreaded a scene, and dreaded her mother, too, and after a moment's reflection that her Charlie would write again, and Adah, who now went regularly to the office, would get it and bring it to her, she said:
"Does mother always look over the letters?"
"Not at first," was Adah's reply, "but now she meets me at the door, and takes them from my hand."
Anna was puzzled. Turning again to Adah, she said:
"I wish you to go always to the office, and if there comes another letter for me, bring it up at once. It's mine."
Anna had no desire now to talk with Adah of the recreant lover, or ask that John should hear the story. Her mind was too much disturbed, and for more than half an hour she sat, looking intently into the fire, seeing there visions of what might be in case Charlie loved her still, and wished her to be his wife. The mere knowing that he had written made her so happy that she could not even be angry with her mother, though a shadow flitted over her face, when her reverie was broken by the entrance of Madam Richards, who had come to see what she thought of fitting up the west chambers for John's wife, instead of the north ones.
"I have a letter from him," she said. "They are to be married the —— day of April, which leaves us only five weeks more, as they will start at once for Terrace Hill. Do, Anna, look interested," she continued, rather pettishly, as Anna did not seem very attentive. "I am so bothered. I want to see you alone," and she cast a furtive glance at Adah, who left the room, while madam plunged at once into the matter agitating her so much.
She had fully intended going to Kentucky with her son, but 'Lina had objected, and the doctor had written, saying she must not go.