Don't you remember he wrote how much she loved him—how gentle and confiding her nature was, and how to leave her then might prove her ruin?"
"Our little Anna is growing very eloquent upon the subject of sewing girls," Miss Asenath said, rather scornfully, and Anna rejoined:
"I am not sure she was a sewing girl. He spoke of her as a schoolgirl."
"But it is most likely he did that to mislead us," said the mother. "The only boarding school he knows anything about is the one where Lottie was. If he were not her uncle by marriage I should not object to Lottie as a daughter," was the next remark, whereupon there ensued a conversation touching the merits and demerits of a certain Lottie Gardner, whose father had taken for a second wife Miss Laura Richards.
This Laura had died within a year of her marriage, but Lottie had claimed relationship to the family just the same, grandmaing Mrs. Richards and aunty-ing the sisters. John, however, was never called uncle, except in fun. He was too near her age, the young lady frequently declaring that she had half a mind to throw aside all family ties and lay siege to the handsome young man, who really was very popular with the fair sex. During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly looking up and down the columns of an oldHerald, which Dick, Eudora's pet dog, had ferreted out from the table and deposited at her feet. She evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements, until one struck her notice as being very singular. Holding it a little more to the light she said: "Possibly this is the very person I want—only the child might be an objection. Just listen," and Anna read as follows:
"Wanted—By an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few months old, a situation in a private family either as governess, seamstress, or lady's maid. Country preferred. Address—"
Anna was about to say whom when a violent ringing of the bell announced an arrival, and the next moment a tall young man, exceedingly Frenchified in his appearance, entered the room, and was soon in the arms of his mother.
John, hastening to where Anna sat, wound his arms around her light figure, and kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an expression, which told that, however indifferent he might be to others, he was not so to Anna.
"You have not changed for the worse," he said. "You are scarcely thinner than when I went away."
"And you are vastly improved," was Anna's answer.
His mother continued: "I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you have done with a wife in Paris?"
"I should not have gone," John answered, moodily, a shadow stealing over his face.
It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a poor, unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly:
"Have you seen her since your return?"
"She's dead," was the laconic reply, and then, as if anxious to change the conversation, the young doctor turned to Anna and said: "Guess who was my fellow traveler from Liverpool?"
Anna never could guess anything, and after a little her brother said:
"The Rev. Charles Millbrook, missionary to Turkey, returning for his health."
For an instant Anna trembled as if she saw opening before her the grave which for fourteen years had held her buried heart. Charlie was breathing again the air of the same hemisphere with herself. She might, perhaps, see him once more, and Hattie, was she with him, or was there another grave made with the Moslem dead by little Anna's aide? She would not ask, for she felt the cold, critical eyes bent upon her from across the hearth, and a few commonplace inquiries was all she ventured upon. Had Mr. Millbrook greatly changed since he went away? Did he look very sick? And how had her brother liked him?
"I scarcely spoke to him," was John's reply. "I confess to a most lamentable ignorance touching the Rev. Mr. Millbrook and his family. He wore crape on his hat, I remember, but there was a lady with him to whom he was quite attentive, and who, I think, was called by his name."
"Tall, with black eyes, like Lottie's?" Anna meekly asked, and John replied: "Something after the Lottie order, though more like yourself."
"It's strange I never saw a notice of his expected return," was Anna's next remark. "Perhaps it was in the lastMissionary Herald. You have not found it yet, have you, mother?"
The ringing of the supper bell prevented Mrs. Richards from answering. How gracefully he did the honors, and how proud all were of him, as he repeated little incidents of Parisian life, speaking of the emperor and Eugenie as if they had been everyday sights to him. In figure and form the fair empress reminded him of Anna, he said, except that Anna was the prettier of the two—a compliment which Anna acknowledged with a blush and a trembling of her long eyelashes. It was a very pleasant family reunion, for John did his best to be agreeable.
"Oh, John, please be careful. There's an advertisement I want to save," Anna exclaimed, as she saw her brother tearing a strip from theHeraldwith which to light his cigar, but as she spoke, the flame curled around the narrow strip, and Dr. Richards had lighted his cigar with the name and address appended to the advertisement which had so interested Anna.
How disturbed she was when she found that nought was left save the simple wants of the young girl.
"Let's see," and taking the mutilated sheet, Dr. Richards read the "Wanted, by a young unfortunate married woman."
"That unfortunate may mean a great deal more than you imagine," he said.
"Yes, but she distinctly says married. Don't you see, and I had really some idea of writing to her."
"I'm sorry I was so careless, but there are a thousand unfortunate women who would gladly be your maid, little sister. I'll send you out a score, if you say so," and John laughed.
"Has anything of importance occurred in this slow old town?" he inquired, after Anna had become reconciled to her loss. "Are the people as odd as usual?"
"Yes, more so," Miss Eudora thought, "and more presuming," whereupon she rehearsed the annoyances to which they had been subjected from their changed circumstances, dwelling at length upon Mrs. Roe's tea drinking, and the insult offered by inviting them, when she knew there would be no one present with whom they associated.
"You forget Mrs. Johnson," interposed Anna. "We would be glad to know her better than we do, she is so refined and cultivated in all her tastes, while Alice is the sweetest girl I ever knew. By the way, brother, they have come here since you left, consequently you have a rare pleasure in store, the forming their acquaintance."
"Whose, the old or the young lady's?" John asked.
"Both," was Anna's reply. "The mother is very youthful in her appearance. Why, she scarcely looks older than I, and I, you know, am thirty-two."
As if fearful lest her own age should come next under consideration, Miss Eudora hastened to say:
"Yes, Mrs. Johnson does look very young, and Alice seems like a child. Such beautiful hair as she has. It used to be a bright yellow, or golden, but now it has a darker, richer shade, while her eyes are the softest,
