"Ann," she panted, "let that oven alone and listen to me. I've got about the biggest piece of news that has come your way in many a long day."
"You say you have?" Ann's brass-handled poker rang as she gave a parting thrust at a burning chunk, and struck the leg of the pot.
"Yes, and I dropped on to it by the barest accident. About an hour after sunset to-day, I was in the graveyard, sitting over Jennie's grave, and planning how to place the new stones. I looked at the spot where I'd been sitting afterwards, and saw that it was well sheltered with thick vines. I was completely covered from the sight of anybody passing along the road. Well, as I was sitting there kind o' tired from my work and the walk, I heard a man's voice and a woman's. It was Langdon Chester and Virginia Hemingway. He seemed to be doing most of the talking, and since God made me, I never heard such tender love-making since I was born. I knew I had no business to listen, but I just couldn't help it. It took me back to the time I was a girl and used to imagine that some fine young man was coming to talk to me that way and offer me a happy home and all heart could desire. I never dreamed such tender words could fall from a man's tongue. I tried to see Virginia's face, but couldn't. He went on to say that his folks was to know nothing at present about him and her, but that everything would finally be satisfactorily arranged."
"Huh, I reckon so!" Ann ejaculated, off her usual guard, and then she lapsed into discreet silence again.
"But I got on to the biggest secret of all," Mrs. Waycroft continued. "It seems that Langdon has been talking in a roundabout way to his father about Jane's sad plight, and that Colonel Chester had agreed to send the money for the operation from Savannah."
"Huh! he's got no money to give away," slipped again from Ann's too facile lips, "and if he did have it, he wouldn't—"
"Well, that may be, or it may not," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but Langdon said he wasn't going to wait for the check. He said a man in Darley had been bantering him for a long time to buy his fine horse, Prince, and as he didn't care to keep the animal, he had sent him by one of the negroes on the place this morning."
"Oh, he did that!" Ann panted. She carefully leaned the poker against the jamb of the fireplace and sat staring, her rugged face working under stress of deep and far-reaching thought.
"So I heard him say as plainly as you and me are talking right now. He said the negro couldn't possibly make the transfer and get back with the money till about ten o'clock to-night. And that, to me, Ann—just between us two, was the oddest thing of all. For he was begging her to slip away from home at that hour and come to his house for the money, so she could surprise her ma with it the first thing in the morning."
"He was, was he? huh!" Ann rose and went to the door and looked out. There she stood stroking her set face with a steady hand. She was tingling with excitement and trying to hide it. Then she turned back and bent low to look at the coals under her pot. "Well, I reckon she was willing to grant a little favor like that under the circumstances."