For several minutes Anna sat looking out upon the snowy landscape, her
usually smooth brow wrinkled with thought, and her eyes gleaming with a
strange, new light. There was a shadow on her fair face, a grieved,
injured expression, as if her mother's treachery had hurt her cruelly.
She knew the letter was withheld, and her first impulse was to demand it
at once. But Anna dreaded a scene, and dreaded her mother, too, and
after a moment's reflection that her Charlie would write again, and
Adah, who now went regularly to the office, would get it and bring it to
her, she said: "Does mother always look over the letters?"
"Not at first," was Adah's reply, "but now she meets me at the door, and
takes them from my hand."
Anna was puzzled. Turning again to Adah, she said: "I wish you to go always to the office, and if there comes another
letter for me, bring it up at once. It's mine."
Anna had no desire now to talk with Adah of the recreant lover, or ask
that John should hear the story. Her mind was too much disturbed, and
for more than half an hour she sat, looking intently into the fire,
seeing there visions of what might be in case Charlie loved her still,
and wished her to be his wife. The mere knowing that he had written made
her so happy that she could not even be angry with her mother, though a
shadow flitted over her face, when her reverie was broken by the
entrance of Madam Richards, who had come to see what she thought of
fitting up the west chambers for John's wife, instead of the north ones.
"I have a letter from him," she said. "They are to be married the ----
day of April, which leaves us only five weeks more, as they will start
at once for Terrace Hill. Do, Anna, look interested," she continued,
rather pettishly, as Anna did not seem very attentive. "I am so
bothered. I want to see you alone," and she cast a furtive glance at
Adah, who left the room, while madam plunged at once into the matter
agitating her so much.
She had fully intended going to Kentucky with her son, but 'Lina had
objected, and the doctor had written, saying she must not go.
"I have not the money myself," he wrote, "and I'll have to get trusted
for my wedding suit, so you must appeal to Anna's good nature for the
wherewithal with which to fix the rooms. She may stay with you longer
than you anticipate. It is too expensive living here, as she would
expect to live. Nothing but Fifth Avenue Hotel would suit her, and I
cannot ask her for funds at once. I'd rather come to it gradually."