At any other time Mrs. Richards would have corrected her domestic for calling a servant a lady, but she did not mind it now in her surprise.
“How came she there?” she said, angrily, while Pamelia replied, evasively,
“The little boy got up stairs, and, as children will, walked right into Miss Anna’s room. She was taken with him at once, and asked who he was. I told her and she sent for the lady. That’s how it happened.”
It could not now be helped, and Mrs. Richards hurried up to Anna’s chamber, where Willie still was perched by Anna’s pillow, playing with the rings upon her fingers, while Adah, with her bonnet in her lap, sat a little apart, traces of tears and agitation upon her cheeks, but a look of happiness in the eyes fixed so wistfully on Anna’s fair, sweet face.
“Please, mother,” said Anna, motioning her away, “leave us alone awhile. Shut the door, and see that no one comes near.”
Mrs. Richards obeyed, and Anna, waiting until she was out of hearing, resumed the conversation just where it had been interrupted.
“And so you are the one who wrote that advertisement which I read. Let me see—the very night my brother came home from Europe. I remember he laughed because I was so interested, and he accidentally tore off the name to light his cigar so I forgot it entirely. What shall I call you, please?”
Adah was silent a moment and then she answered, “Adah, Adah Hastings, but please do not ask where I came from now. I will tell you of the past, though I did not even mean to do that, but something about you makes me know I can trust you.” And then, amid a shower of tears, in which Anna’s, too, were mingled, Adah told her sad story—told of the mock marriage, the cruel desertion, of Willie’s birth, her utter wretchedness, her attempt at suicide, her final trust in God, her going at last to one who gave her a home, even when he could not afford it; of her accidentally finding Anna’s advertisement, and its result. No names were given, not even that of New York. It was merely the city and the country, and forgetful of the medium through which she first heard of Adah, Anna fancied Boston to have been the scene of her trials.
“But why do you wish to conceal your recent home?” she asked, after Adah had finished. “Is there any reason?”
For a moment Adah was tempted to tell the whole, but when she remembered how on the day of her departure from Spring Bank Mrs. Worthington had asked her not to say any thing disparaging of ’Lina, and admitted that it would be a great relief if the Richards family should not know for the present at least that she came from Spring Bank, she replied,