“Yes’m—yes, my lady.” There was but one woman in the world to whom Gladys-Marie would acknowledge such subservience, but one woman before whom she would appear instantly—and awesomely.
“Here’s the hat, Gladys-Marie. Run along with it and have a good time, only come back so that you can get dinner; and, Gladys-Marie, perhaps you had better leave a little lunch on the buffet. I don’t believe the others will be quite ready to eat with me.”
“Never are,” muttered Gladys-Marie, handling the hat as though it were Venetian glass. “Sit with their noses glued over an old pad o’ paper all day long, ’n’ the house ’n’ the meals ’n’ Lady Elinore ’n’ me c’n go to—c’n go hang, ’s what I mean,” she apologized to Anne. “Oh, I know you think I’m the pert one with me nerve carried round in me side pocket, but I c’n see, I can; ’n’ if ever I see perruls cast before swine—Gee! it’s plainer ’n any Sunday-school chromo ever tried to be.”
She looked back at the pearl in question with a kind of wrathful tenderness. But the Lady Elinore, apparently, had not heard a word; only the soft part in her warm gold hair was visible above the sewing in her hands.
“She’s awful sweet,” sighed the worldling, pityingly, “’n’ twice as smart with hands as I am. But—my word! she ain’t clever! The way she lets herself get done an’ don’t even squirm about it pickles me!”
The fussy little train steamed off with an important backward lunge, as though to say, “There! I did the very best I could for you!” And Anne, who alone with the station-master saw what it had deposited, could understand how it lingered on the siding and switched back and forth several times after it had given every pretence of departing. For the spare, shortish person it had set down at the small station made of the station a suddenly very wonderful place indeed.
“You are Timothy,” said Anne, gravely, going forward. “I came to meet you—I am Anne, you know.”
“I am very glad to know.” When the spare person smiled like that the station-master straightened his tie and began to whistle. “For you to come to meet me is the most cordial introduction we could possibly have had. Is that your cart?”
“Yes.” Since Timothy mentioned it, Anne thought it was not such a bad cart, after all. “If you will put your bag inside I will get the milk-can.”
“Oh, I’ll get the milk-can, miss,” offered the station-master, hastily, as though he were not in the habit of lounging over his pipe while he watched Anne carry it night and morning. “There you are!” He swung it up with a flourish.