"Ah, Miss Kilburn!" she said, without any of the wonted preliminaries of
introduction and greeting. "I should have come long ago to see you, but
I've been dispersed over the four quarters of the globe ever since you
came, my dear. I got home last night on the nine o'clock train, in the last
agonies of that howling tempest. Did you ever know anything like it? I see
your trees have escaped. I wonder they weren't torn to shreds."
Annie took her on her own ground of ignoring their past non-acquaintance.
"Yes, it was awful. And your son--how did you leave him? Mr. Brandreth--"
"Oh yes, poor little man! I found him waiting for me at home last night,
and he told me he had been here. He was blowing about in the storm all day.
Such a spirit! There was nothing serious the matter; the bridge of the nose
was all right; merely the cartilage pushed aside by the ball."
She had passed so lightly from Mr. Brandreth's heroic spirit to her son's
nose that Annie, woman as she was, and born to these bold bounds over
sequence, was not sure where they had arrived, till Mrs. Munger added:
"Jim's used to these things. I'm thankful it wasn't a finger, or an eye.
What is _that_?" She jumped from her chair, and swooped upon the
Spanish-Roman water-colour Annie had stood against some books on the table,
pending its final disposition.
"It's only a Guerra," said Annie. "My things are all scattered about still;
I have scarcely tried to get into shape yet."
Mrs. Munger would not let her interpose any idea of there being a past
between them. She merely said: "You knew the Herricks at Rome, of course.
I'm in hopes I shall get them here when they come back. I want you to help
me colonise Hatboro' with the right sort of people: it's so easy to get the
wrong sort! But, so far, I think we've succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
It's easy enough to get nice people together at the seaside; but inland!
No; it's only a very few nice people who will come into the country for the
summer; and we propose to make Hatboro' a winter colony too; that gives us
agreeable invalids, you know; it gave us the Brandreths. He told you of our
projected theatricals, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Annie non-committally, "he did."
"I know just how you feel about it, my dear," said Mrs. Munger. "'Been
there myself,' as Jim says. But it grows upon you. I'm glad you didn't
refuse outright;" and Mrs. Munger looked at her with eyes of large
expectance.