Pamelia could not tell. The likeness had puzzled her, but she never thought of finding it in her young mistress’ face.
“I must see his mother,” Anna said, as she continued to caress and fondle him. “Perhaps I should like her. At any events I will hear what she has to say. Show her up, Pamelia; but first smooth my hair a little and arrange my pillows,” she added, feeling intuitively that the stranger was not like the others who had come to her on similar errands.
Pamelia complied with her request, brushing back the long, loose locks, and making the bed more smooth and tidy in its appearance; then leaving Willie with Anna, she repaired to the reception room, and rousing the sleeping Adah, said to her hurriedly,
“Please, miss, come quick; Miss Anna wants to see you. The little boy is up there with her.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ANNA AND ADAH.
For a moment Anna was inclined to think that Pamelia had made a mistake and brought her the wrong individual, but Willie set her right by patting her cheek again, while he called out, “Mamma, arntee.”
The look of interest which Anna cast upon him emboldened Adah to say,
“Excuse him, Miss Richards; he must have mistaken you for a dear friend at home, whom he calls Auntie. I’ll take him down; he troubles you.”
“No, no, please not,” and Anna passed her arm around him. “I love children so much. I ought to have been a wife and mother, my brother says, instead of a useless old maid.”
Adah was too much a stranger to disclaim against Anna’s calling herself old, so she paid no attention to the remark, but plunged at once into the matter which had brought her there. Presuming they would rather be alone, Pamelia had purposely left the room, meeting in the lower hall with lady Richards, who, in much affright, was searching for the recent occupants of the reception room. She had ordered Dixson to carry them some lunch, and Dixson had returned with the news that there was no woman or child to be seen. Where were they then? Had they decamped, taking with them anything valuable which chanced to be in their way? Of course they had, and Eudora in the parlor, and Asenath in the dining room, and Mrs. Richards in the hall, were hunting for missing articles, when Pamelia quieted them by saying, “The lady was in Miss Anna’s room.”