On the kitchen hearth a cheerful wood fire had been kindled, and making some faint excuse for having been out in the storm, Anna repaired thither, and standing before the blaze was drying her dripping garments, when a voice from the adjoining room made her start and tremble, for she knew that it was Adam’s.
He seemed to be excited and was asking for her. An accident had occurred just before his door. Frightened by the lightning which Anna remembered so well, a pair of spirited horses had upset a traveling carriage, in which was a young lady and her maid. The latter had sustained no injury, but the lady’s ankle was sprained, and she was otherwise so lamed and bruised that it was impossible for her to proceed any farther that night. So he had carried her into his cottage and dispatching the driver for the physician had come himself for Anna as the suitable person to play the hostess in his home.
“Oh, I can’t go,—mother, you!” Anna exclaimed, shrinking in terror from again crossing the threshold of the home she was about to make so desolate.
But Adam preferred Anna. The lady was young, he said, and it seemed to him more appropriate that Anna should attend her. Mrs. Burroughs thought so, too, and, with a sinking heart, Anna prepared herself for a second visit to the cottage. In her excitement she forgot entirely to ask the name of the stranger, and as she was not disposed to talk, nothing was said of the lady until the cottage was reached and she was ushered into the dining-room, where old Martha and a smart looking servant were busy with the bandages and hot water preparing for the invalid who had been carried to the pleasant bed-room opening from the parlor.
CHAPTER V.
MILDRED ATHERTON.
“How is Miss Atherton?” Adam asked of Martha, while he kindly attempted to assist Anna in removing the heavy shawl her mother had wrapped around her.
“Who? What did you call her?” Anna asked, her hands dropping helplessly at her side.
“Why, I thought I told you. I surely did your mother. I beg pardon for my carelessness. It’s Mildred Atherton,” and Adam’s voice sank to a whisper. “She was on her way to visit Mrs. Harcourt. I suppose it would be well to send for Dunallen, but I thought it hardly proper for me to suggest it. I’ll let you get at it somehow, and see if she wants him. You girls have a way of understanding each other.”
Knowing how, in similar circumstances, he should yearn for Anna’s presence, Adam had deemed it natural that Mildred’s first wish would be for Herbert, and one reason for his insisting that Anna should come back with him was the feeling that the beautiful girl, whose face had interested him at once, would be more free to communicate her wishes to one of her own age.