"What does she mean?" the rector thought. "Is she trying to tantalize
me? I expected her to be natural, as her aunt laid great stress on
that, but she need not overdo the matter by showing me how little she
cares for having hurt me so."
Then, as a flash of pride came to his aid, he thought, "I will at
least be even with her. She shall not have the satisfaction of
guessing how much I suffer," and as Lucy then called to him from the
opposite side of the lawn, he asked Anna to accompany him thither,
just as he would have done a week before. Once that afternoon he found
himself alone with her in a quiet part of the woods, where the long
branches of a great oak came nearly to the ground, and formed a little
bower which looked so inviting that Anna sat down upon the gnarled
roots of the tree, and, tossing her hat upon the grass, exclaimed,
"How nice and pleasant it is here. Come, sit down, too, while I tell
you about my class in Sunday-school, and that poor Mrs. Hobbs across
the mill stream. You won't forget her, will you? I told her you would
visit her the oftener when I was gone. Do you know she cried because I
was going? It made me feel so badly that I doubted if it was right for
me to go," and, pulling down a handful of the oak leaves above her
head, Anna began weaving together a chaplet, while the rector stood
watching her with a puzzled expression upon his face. She did not act
as if she ever could have dictated that letter, but he had no
suspicion of the truth and answered rather coldly, "I did not suppose
you cared how much we might miss you at home."
Something in his tone made Anna look up into his face, and her eyes
immediately filled with tears, for she knew that in some way she had
displeased him.
"Then you mistake me," she replied, the tears still glittering on her
long eyelashes, and her fingers trembling among the oaken leaves. "I
do care whether I am missed or not."
"Missed by whom?" the rector asked, and Anna impetuously replied,
"Missed by the parish poor, and by you, too, Mr. Leighton. You don't
know how often I shall think of you, or how sorry I am that----"
She did not finish the sentence, for the rector had leaped madly at
the conclusion, and was down in the grass at her side with both her
hands in his.