MISS ANNIE RICHARDS,
SNOWDOWN,
MASS.
That was the direction, and the envelope was faced with black. Adah
noticed this, together with the heavy seal of wax stamped with an
initial; and she was taking the lost epistle to its rightful owner when
Mrs. Richards met her, asking what she had.
"I found this beneath the curtain," Adah replied. "It's for Miss Anna;
I'll take it to her, shall I?"
"Yes, yes--yes, yes; for Anna," and madam snatched eagerly at that
letter from Charlie Millbrook.
Soon recovering herself, she said naturally: "I'll take it myself. Say,
girl, what is your name, now that you are to work here? You won't mind
righting up the parlors, I presume--sweeping and dusting them, before
you go upstairs again?"
It was new business for Adah, sweeping parlors as a servant, but she did
it without a murmur; and then, when her task was completed, stopped for
a moment by a window, and looked out upon the town, wondering where
Alice Johnson's home had been. The house where she once lived would seem
like an old friend, she thought, just as Pamelia came in and joined her.
At the same moment Adah's eye caught the cottage by the river, and her
heart beat rapidly, for that seemed to answer Alice's description of her
Snowdon home.
"Whose pretty place is that?" she asked, pointing it out to Pamelia, who
replied: "It was a Mrs. Johnson's, but she's dead, and Miss Alice has gone a
long ways off. I wish you could see Miss Alice, the most beautiful and
the best lady in the world. She and Miss Anna were great friends. She
used to be up here every day, and the village folks talked some that she
came to see the doctor. But my," and Pamelia's face was very expressive
of contempt, "she wouldn't have him, by a great sight. He's going to be
married, though, to a Kentucky belle, with a hundred or more negroes,
they say, and mighty big feelin'. But she needn't bring none of her a'rs
nor her darkies here!"
"When does she come?" Adah asked, and Pamelia answered: "In the spring; so you needn't begin to dread her. Why, your face is
white as paper," and rather familiarly Pamelia pinched Adah's marble
cheek.
Adah did not mean to be proud, but still she could not help shrinking
from the familiarity, drawing back so quickly that Pamelia saw the
implied rebuke. She did not ask pardon, but she became at once more
respectful.
A moment after Anna's bell was heard, but Adah paid no heed, till
Pamelia said: "That was Miss Anna's bell, and it means for you to come."
Adah colored, and hastily left the room, while Pamelia muttered to
herself: "Ain't no more a maid than Miss Anna herself. But why has she come here?
That's the mystery. She's been unfortunate."