Was it over! Anne Lewis reckoned without her host.
I was running into Maythorn Bank the next morning, when I saw the shimmer of Anne’s white garden-bonnet and her morning dress amidst the raspberry-bushes, and turned aside to greet her. She had a basin in her hand, picking the fruit, and the hot tears were running down her cheeks. Conceal her distress she could not; any attempt would have been worse than futile.
“Oh, Johnny, she is going to marry him!” cried she, with an outburst of sobs.
“Going to marry him!—who? what?” I asked, taking the basin from her hand: for I declare that the truth did not strike me.
“She is. Mrs. Podd. She is going to marry papa.”
For a moment she held her face against the apple-tree. The words confounded me. More real grief I had never seen. My heart ached for her.
“Don’t think me selfish,” she said, turning presently, trying to subdue the sobs, and wiping the tears away. “I hope I am not that: or undutiful. It is not for myself that I grieve; indeed it is not; but for him.”
I knew that.
“If I could only think it would be for his happiness! But oh, I fear it will not be. Something seems to tell me that it will not. And if—he should be—uncomfortable afterwards—miserable afterwards!—I think the distress would kill me.”
“Is it true, Anne? How did you hear it?”