“At first there was none in particular, save a fancy I had, but there came one afterwards—the request of one who had been kind to me as a dear mother. Is it wrong not to tell the whole?”
“I think not. You have dealt honestly with me so far, and I am sure I can trust you.”
She meant to keep her then. She was not going to send her away, and Adah’s face lighted up with a joy which made it so beautiful that Anna gazed at her in surprise, marveling that any heart could be so hard as to desert that gentle girl.
“Oh, may I stay?” Adah asked eagerly.
“Of course you may. Did you think I would turn you away?” was Anna’s reply; and laying her head upon the white counterpane of the bed, Adah cried passionately; not a wild, bitter cry, but a delicious kind of cry which did her good, even though her whole frame quivered and her low, choking sobs fell distinctly on Anna’s ear.
“Poor child!” the latter said, laying her soft hand on the bowed head. “You have suffered much, but with me you shall find rest. I want you for a companion, rather than a maid. You are better suited for it, and we shall be very happy together, I am sure, though I am so much an invalid. I, too, have had my heart trouble; not like yours, but heavy enough to make me wish I could die. I was young and wayward then. I had not learned patience where alone it is to be found.”
It was seldom that Anna alluded to herself in this way, and to do so to a stranger was utterly foreign to the Richards’ nature. But Anna could not help it. There was something about Adah which interested her greatly. She knew she was above a waiting-maid’s position, that in point of refinement and cultivation she was fully equal to herself; and when she decided to keep her, it was with the determination that she should be made to feel the degradation of her position as little as possible. She could not wholly shield her from her mother’s and sisters’ pride, but she would do what she could, and perhaps some day the recreant lover would be found and brought back to a sense of his duty.
Blessed Anna Richards,—the world has few like her, so gentle, so kind, so lovely, and as no one could long be with her and not feel her influence, so Adah grew calm, at last, and at Anna’s request laid aside her cloak and hat in which she had been sitting.
“Touch that bell, if you please, and ring Pamelia up,” Anna said. “There’s a little room adjoining this, opening into the hall, and also in here—that’s the door, with the bureau against it. I mean to give you that. You will be so near me, and so retired, too, when you like. John—that’s my brother—occupied it when a boy, but as he grew larger he said it was too small. Still, I think it will answer nicely for you.”
Obedient to the ring, Pamelia came, manifesting no surprise when told by Anna to move the dressing bureau back to the corner where it used to stand, to unlock the door and see if the little room was in order. “I know it is,” she said, “I put it so this morning. There’s a fire, too. Miss Anna has forgot that Dr. John slept here last night, because it did not take so long to warm up as his big chamber.”