Mrs. Maybrook set down the berries, and without a word went on her knees, took the dainty slipper, lifted the foot, bestowed a glance of swift curiosity upon it as she put on the slipper, and gently replaced the foot in the hammock.
“Sakes alive! If I was a man, I’d just say it’s beautiful. Being a woman, I’d like to know how you walk on them?”
“Oh, I don’t very much; not nowadays,” returned Anne, smiling. “Thank you.”
It was a neat little shot, although quite unconscious of aim. Miss Anne tried to think she disliked both the help and the outspoken admiration. She made a feeble effort to generalize the compliment, and so to get away from its personal application:
“It’s a family failing, Mrs. Maybrook. Even our men have absurdly small hands and feet. I should have offered you a camp-chair. Get one, please, out of the house. I am quite incapable of helping any one,—even myself.” Mrs. Maybrook did as Anne desired, and sat down.
“My sister-in-law was going to see you to-day. Shall I call her! She must be in her room.”
“Oh, there’s time enough. That’s the only thing we have a plenty of up here. We ain’t time-starved, I can tell you.” Anne began to be interested. Quaintness of phrase was a thing so rare. For a few minutes she had been struggling with one of her few weaknesses. At last she gave way:
“Excuse me, but would you be so kind as to put the basket of strawberries in the house? The sun will spoil them.”
“Oh, but the sun is good for them. They won’t take any hurt.”
“But I shall. The fact is, when I was a girl I was picking strawberries in the White Hills, and a snake—oh, a rattlesnake—struck at me. I have been ever since unable to endure the odor of strawberries. I think it becomes worse as I grow more feeble. It is very absurd.” She was absolutely pleading her weakness to this simple woman, and had ceased for the time to be self-critical.