The emphatic question, spoken in evident surprise, came from her stepmother. The chamber-door was open; Mrs. Lewis had chanced to look in as she passed.
“What are you doing that for?” she stopped to ask. Anne ceased her song at once and rose from her knees. She really did not know what it was that had elicited the sharp query—unless it was the singing.
“You need not pack your own things. You are not going to Worcester. It is intended that you shall remain here and take care of the house and of Sally.”
“Oh, but, Mrs. Lewis, I could not stay here alone,” cried Anne, a hundred thoughts rushing tumultuously into her mind. “It could not be.”
“Not stay here alone! Why, what is to hinder it? Do you suppose you would get run away with? Now, my dear, we will have no trouble, if you please. You will stay at home like a good girl—therefore you may unpack your box.”
Anne went straight to her father, and found him with Herbert Tanerton. He had walked over from Timberdale to inquire after the doctor’s health.
“Could this be, papa?” she said. “That I am to be left alone here while you stay at Worcester?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, child,” was the peevish answer. “My belief is that you dream dreams, Anne, and then fancy them realities.”
“But Mrs. Lewis tells me that I am not to go to Worcester—that I am to stay at home,” persisted Anne. And she said it before Mrs. Lewis: who had come into the room then, and was shaking hands with the parson.
“I think, love, it will be so much better for dear Anne to remain here and see to things,” she said, in that sweet company-voice of hers.