This inspiration seemed to decide the little girl against crying. The cat
was equipped with a doily, and actually provided with dinner at a small
table apart; the child did not look at it as Annie had expected she would,
but remained with her eyes fastened on Annie herself: She did not stir from
the spot where Mrs. Bolton had put her down, but she let Annie take her
up and arrange her in a chair, with large books graduated to the desired
height under her, and made no sign of satisfaction or disapproval. Once she
looked round, when Mrs. Bolton finally went out after bringing in the last
dish for dinner, and then fastened her eyes on Annie again, twisting her
head shyly round to follow her in every gesture and expression as Annie
fitted on a napkin under her chin, cut up her meat, poured her milk, and
buttered her bread. She answered nothing to the chatter which Annie tried
to make lively and entertaining, and made no sound but that of a broken and
suppressed breathing. Annie had forgotten to ask her name of Mrs. Bolton,
and she asked it in vain of the child herself, with a great variety of
circumlocution; she was so unused to children that she was ashamed to
invent any pet name for her; she called her, in what she felt to be a stiff
and school-mistressly fashion, "Little Girl," and talked on at her, growing
more and more nervous herself without perceiving that the child's condition
was approaching a climax. She had taken off her glasses, from the notion
that they embarrassed her guest, and she did not see the pretty lips
beginning to curl, nor the searching eyes clouding with tears; the storm of
sobs that suddenly burst upon her astounded her.
"Mrs. Bolton! Mrs. Bolton!" she screamed, in hysterical helplessness. Mrs.
Bolton rushed in, and with an instant perception of the situation, caught
the child to her bony breast, and fled with it to her own room, where Annie
heard its wails die gradually away amid murmurs of comfort and reassurance
from Mrs. Bolton.
She felt like a great criminal and a great fool; at the same time she was
vexed with the stupid child which she had meant so well by, and indignant
with Mrs. Bolton, whose flight with it had somehow implied a reproach of
her behaviour. When she could govern herself, she went out to Mrs. Bolton's
room, where she found the little one quiet enough, and Mrs. Bolton tying on
the long apron in which she cleared up the dinner and washed the dishes.