“I think, Anna,” and she addressed herself to her principal assistant, “I think, Anna, this will be a lesson to me!—a lesson I shall not soon forget. What are you looking at?” For Anna was staring fixedly out of the window paying no heed to her mistress' remarks.
Even as she spoke Mrs. Perkins caught the sound of wheels as they rolled over the hard gravel of the carriageway below the window.
“I believe they have come,” Anna said, her nose against the glass. “I declare it looks like them. There are two of them and both are in black.”
At the news Mrs. Perkins sank down upon a chair completely overcome. “No, you can't mean it, Anna! For heaven's sake, look again!”
“There's two of them,” Anna answered triumphantly. “They're both getting out. It's them.”
Whereat Mrs. Perkins let fall two tears which plowed their way through the dust upon her cheek and fell with a muddy splash to the folded hands in her lap.
“That I should have lived to see this day!” she moaned.
“Shan't I go down and let them in?” asked Anna.
“No. I shall go myself.”
Mrs. Perkins arose, summoning up all the majesty of bearing at her command, and surveyed the faded silk wrapper that hung limply and dustily to her figure with profound disgust.