“I think I shall go to Worcester to-day and order it,” spoke up Mrs. Lewis, briskly, after a pause. “Necessity has no law; and we cannot get proper things unless I do. Yes, we will go: I don’t mind the weather. Julia, ring the bell.”
Anne—poor Anne—came in to answer the bell. She had no choice: Sally was out on an errand.
“Just see that we have a tray in with the cold meat, Anne, at half-past twelve. We must go to Worcester about the mourning——”
“To Worcester!” involuntarily interrupted Anne, in her surprise.
“There’s no help for it, though of course it’s not the thing I would choose to do,” said Mrs. Lewis, coldly. “One cannot provide proper things here: bonnets especially. I will get you a bonnet at the same time. And we must have a bit of something, hot and nice, for tea, when we come home.”
“Very well,” sighed Anne.
In the afternoon, Anne sat in the same room alone, busy over some black work, on which her tears dropped slowly. When it was growing dusk, Mr. Coney and the young Rector of Timberdale came in together. Herbert Tanerton did not forget that his late stepfather and Dr. Lewis were half-brothers. Anne brushed away the signs of her tears, laid down her work, and stirred the fire into a blaze.
“Now, my lass,” said the farmer, in his plain, homely way, but he always meant kindly, “I’ve just heard that that stepmother of yours went off to Worcester to-day with those two dandified girls of hers, and so I thought I’d drop in while the coast was clear. I confess I don’t like her: and I say that somebody ought to look a bit to you and your interests.”
“And I, coming over upon much the same errand, met Mr. Coney at the gate,” added Herbert Tanerton, with a smile as near geniality as he ever gave. “I wish to express my deep regret for your loss, Miss Lewis, and to assure you of my true sympathy. You will think my visit a late one, but I had a—a service this afternoon.” He would not say a funeral.
“You are both very, very kind,” said Anne, her eyes again filling, “and I thank you for thinking of me. I feel isolated from all: this place at best is strange to me after my life’s home in France. It seems that I have not a friend in the world.”