Bad Hugh
Page 26She evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements,
until one struck her notice as being very singular. Holding it a little
more to the light she said: "Possibly this is the very person I
want--only the child might be an objection. Just listen," and Anna read
as follows: "WANTED--By an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few
months old, a situation in a private family either as governess,
seamstress, or lady's maid. Country preferred. Address--"
Anna was about to say whom when a violent ringing of the bell announced
an arrival, and the next moment a tall young man, exceedingly
Frenchified in his appearance, entered the room, and was soon in the
arms of his mother.
figure, and kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an
expression, which told that, however indifferent he might be to others,
he was not so to Anna.
"You have not changed for the worse," he said. "You are scarcely thinner
than when I went away."
"And you are vastly improved," was Anna's answer.
His mother continued: "I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain
letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of
course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you
have done with a wife in Paris?"
his face.
It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic
on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence
ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was
not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a
poor, unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly: "Have you seen her since your return?"
"She's dead," was the laconic reply, and then, as if anxious to change
the conversation, the young doctor turned to Anna and said: "Guess who
was my fellow traveler from Liverpool?"
Anna never could guess anything, and after a little her brother said: "The Rev. Charles Millbrook, missionary to Turkey, returning for his
For an instant Anna trembled as if she saw opening before her the grave
which for fourteen years had held her buried heart. Charlie was
breathing again the air of the same hemisphere with herself. She might,
perhaps, see him once more, and Hattie, was she with him, or was there
another grave made with the Moslem dead by little Anna's aide? She would
not ask, for she felt the cold, critical eyes bent upon her from across
the hearth, and a few commonplace inquiries was all she ventured upon.
Had Mr. Millbrook greatly changed since he went away? Did he look very
sick? And how had her brother liked him?