"No-o, only I thought perhaps she was with her dead husband; but, poor thing, it is not her nature, I presume, to take it much to heart."
Pamelia didn't believe she did "take it much to heart." Indeed, she didn't see how she could, but she said nothing, and Adah was left to play with Willie until Alice was announced as being in the reception-room. She had driven around, she said, to call on Mrs. Richards, and after that take Adah with her to the cottage, where Anna, she knew, was anxious to receive her. At first Mrs. Richards demurred, fearing it would be improper, but saying: "my late son's wife is, of course, her own mistress, and can do as she likes."
Very adroitly Alice waived all objections, and bore Adah off in triumph.
"I knew you must be lonely up there," she said, as they drove slowly along, "and there can be no harm in visiting one's sick sister."
Anna surely did not think there was, as her warm, welcoming kisses fully testified.
"I wanted so much to see you to-day," she said, "that I have worked myself into quite a fever; but knowing mother as I do, I feared she might not sanction your coming;" then proudly turning down the blanket, she disclosed the red-faced baby, who, just one week ago, had come to the Riverside Cottage.
"Isn't he a beauty?" she asked, pressing her lips upon the wrinkled forehead. "A boy, too, and looks so much like Charlie, but—" and her soft, blue eyes seemed more beautiful than ever with the maternal love-shining for them, "I shall not call him Charlie, nor yet John, though mother's heart is set on the latter name. I can't. I loved my brother dearly, and never so much as now that he is dead, but my baby boy must not bear his name, and so I have chosen Hugh, Hugh Richards. I know it will please you both," and she glanced archly at Alice, who blushingly kissed the little boy who was to bear the name dearest to her of all others.
Hugh—they talked of him a while, and then Anna spoke of Irving Stanley, expressing her fears that she could not see him to thank him for his kindness and forbearance to her erring brother.
"He must be noble and good," she said, then turning to Adah, she continued: "You were with him a year. You must know him well. Do you like him?"
"Yes," and Adah's face was all ablaze, as the simple answer dropped from her lips.