She forced them back and met the Squire with a smile that was all the
sweeter for the effort.
"Here's your chair, Squire, all ready waiting for you, and the only
thing you want to make you perfectly happy--is--guess?" She held out
his old corncob pipe, filled to perfection.
"I declare, Anna, you are just spoiling me, and some day you'll be
going off and getting married to some of these young fellows 'round
here, and where will I be then?"
"You need have no fears on that score," she said, struggling to
maintain a smile.
"Well, well, that's what girls always say, but I don't know what we'll
do without you. How long have you been with us, now?"
"Let me see," counting on her fingers: "just six months."
"So it is, my dear. Well, I hope it will be six years before you think
of leaving us. And, Anna, while we are talking, I like to say to you
that I have felt pretty mean more than once about the way I treated you
that first day you come."
"Pray, do not mention it, Squire. Your kindness since has quite made
me forget that you hesitated to take an utter stranger into your
household."
"That was it, my dear--an utter stranger--and you cannot really blame
me; here was Looizy and Kate and I was asked to take into the house
with them a young woman whom I had never set eyes on before; it seemed
to me a trifle risky, but you've proved that I was wrong, my dear, and
I'll admit it."
The girl dropped the stocking she was mending; her trembling hand
refused to support even the pretense of work. Outside the snow was
falling just as it was falling, perhaps, on the little grave where all
her youth and hope were buried.
The thought gave her courage to speak, though the pale lips struggled
pitifully to frame the words.
"Squire, suppose that when I came to you that day last June you had
been right--I am only saying this for the sake of argument, Squire--but
suppose that I had been a deceived girl, that I had come here to begin
all over again; to live down the injustice, the scandal and all the
other things that unfortunate woman have to live down, would you still
have felt the same?"
"Why, Anna, I never heard you talk like this before; of course I should
have felt the same; if a commandment is broke, it's broke; nothing can
alter that, can it?"