Ann

“ Ann was equally joyous. They were a merry trio when they joined Patience and Mistress Newbolt under a great oak tree, where a cloth had been spread, pies, and cakes, and a heap of ripe strawberries presenting a tempting meal.
Verily there are bright days in life which leave their mark in our hearts, and bring a rush of gladness to the eyes and a smile to the lips when we recall them. ”

“ Ann sat on the fender-stool with her cup and saucer, and a pot of jam on the rug beside her, and a plate with a crumpet on her lap, and ate busily.
"Life is still full of pleasant things, Mums, pretty girls and crumpets, and strawberry jam, and fender-stools, and blazing fires, and little moaning mothers who laugh even while they cry. Your pessimism is like the bubbles on a glass of champagne—oh, I know you have been a teetotaller all your days, but that doesn't harm my metaphor." ”

“ Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff, stepping daintily over the young grass and the flowers, looked and felt like a part of it all. Her dark cheeks had a beautiful red glow on them; her black eyes shone. She was as straight and graceful and stately as an Indian.
"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs. Polly in her secret heart. A good many people said that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her youth, and that may have added force to her admiration. ”

“ Ann hesitated. "You do not understand," she said.
"Then it is time I did," answered Patience. "Take me to your mother."
As she spoke she looked at Ann. Could this be the same girl she had known so fresh and blooming? She seemed to have grown taller, and her face was sallow and thin; she might have been any age, she looked so worn and anxious. She was scrupulously neat in a linen gown, with a white apron and a muslin kerchief folded across her bosom; over her head she wore a sort of linen wrapper, which hid all her hair, leaving only a small band on either side of her forehead. ”

“ Carefully and wisely Ann fed the fire of extravagance. She advised the little blond parasite as to the enhancement of her beauty, with a deftness and knowledge which produced results. Like all vain women Mrs. Quartel accepted everything without question, even without gratitude, as tributes to her loveliness. Ann was always admiring, always willing to listen to complaints, always sympathetic of the admiration of others. ”

“ That day, with the gold beads by way of celebration, began a new era in Ann's life. There was no more secret animosity between her and Mrs. Dorcas. The doctor had come that night in the very nick of time. Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann with kindness, but she seemed to smother her grudge against Grandma for robbing her of the southwest fire-room. ”

“ Ann exclaimed, her brow ruffled with pained perplexity, "I hardly know what to say in the matter. I don't blame you for letting out the whole business after you once got started. That was just natural. But don't worry about her. She'll pull through; she's tough as whitleather; her trouble's not of the body, but the mind. I know; I've been through enough of it. Mark my prophecy, she'll come out one of these days feeling better. She'll crawl out of her darkness like a butterfly from its dead and useless husk. She'll see clearer out in the open light when once she strikes it. ”

“ For Ann it had been like warm sunlight on the growing rose. She was neater in dress, lovelier in form and color, more graceful in movement and sweeter-voiced than ever she had been. It is the old way that Nature has of preparing the young to come out upon the stage of real life and to act in its moving scenes. Abe manfully gave them his best wishes and when he spoke of Ann it was done very tenderly. ”

“ Katie's imagination coquetted successfully with conviction.
Ann, or more accurately the idea of Ann, fascinated her. Never before had she known any one all unencumbered, unbound, by facts. Most people were rendered commonplace by the commonplace things one knew about them. But Ann was as interesting as one's brain could make her. Anything one choose to think—or say—about Ann could just as well as not be true. It swept one all unchained out into a virgin land of fancy. ”

“ Ann, dear Ann, was it to you I wrote the sonnet beginning? Ah, no, the errors snare us, bare us to the quick of lime. The arith­metic of memory multiplies fantasy.
Poetry, succor me in this hour of need, help me as you have: I have given you my life; now, you must lend argument to my folly. Dry the rain on my skull! Be youth: be Ellen, outcast, incast, what is your substance, whereof you are made, that millions of strange shadows on you tend? ”

“ No one with nerves could have helped it. Right in the path before her stood the horse-thief, gray cloak and all.
Ann turned, after her scream and first wild stare, and ran. But the man caught her before she had taken three steps. “Don't scream,” he said in a terrible, anxious whisper. “Don't make a noise, for God's sake! They're after me! Can't you hide me?”
“No,” said Ann, white and trembling all over but on her mettle, “I won't. You are a sinful man, and you ought to be punished. I won't do a thing to help you!” ”

“ Ann added an epithet so coarse that I do not choose to repeat it.
"Oh, misery! can I not even suffer in silence?" thought the poor girl. "Must I have that horrible voice for ever dinning in my ears?" Grace said nothing aloud, but her face probably betrayed something of her feelings, for Ann went on in the tone of one who is offended. "There's no use in anybody's playing the fine lady here, or turning up her nose at the company she meets with. ”

“ It sent her heart out in a great tenderness to Ann: Ann, out in her mountains, and happy. Nor was the tenderness less warm in the thought that Ann would join with Wayne and the others in deploring. Ann, who was within now, would, Katie knew, grieve over her going without.
But that was only because Ann did not wholly understand. Everything the matter with everybody was just that they did not wholly understand. She grew tender toward all the world.
There rose before her vision of a possible day when all would understand; when none would wish another ill or work another harm ”

“ You know not the weakness of the staff on which you would lean, or the frailties of the heart to which you would look up, for aid. Of myself, dear Ann, I can do nothing. I can only look to God for protection from temptation, and for guidance in the right way. When He keeps me, I am safe; when He withdraws His spirit, I am weak indeed. And can I lead you, Ann? No! you must go to a higher than earthly friend. ”

“ With a little sigh of physical content, she nestled deeper into the silken pillows, inhaling the faint oriental perfume that clung about them, wondering vaguely when Ann would come to waken her. Ann? Ann would never come to her again! Ann was gone, the victim of petty spite and tyranny. And she—With a strangled cry she started up, trembling violently, staring around her in bewilderment. Then remembrance came with a rush, and sobbing with relief she sank back on the cushions of the wide divan where once before she had slept with such curious confidence. ”

“ Ann's face was hard as stone. Her eyes, resting on the far-off blue mountains and foot-hills, flashed like spiritual fires. It was at such moments that the weaker woman feared her, and Mrs. Waycroft's glance was almost apologetic. However, Ann spoke first.
"You may as well tell me, Mary Waycroft," she faltered, "exactly what you had in mind. I know you are a friend. You are a friend if there ever was one to a friendless woman. What was you thinking about? Don't be afraid to tell me. You could not hurt my feelings to save your life."
"Well, then, I will be plain, Ann," returned the widow. ”

“ I don't believe I'm a shallow man. To me the right kind of love is as eternal as the stars, and every bit as majestic. Mine, Aunt Ann, began years ago, here in the mountains, on the banks of these streams, in the shadow of these green hills. I loved her when she was a child. I went far off and met women of all sorts and ranks, and in their blank faces I always saw the soulful features of my child sweetheart. ”

“ Ann said, her moist, glad eyes fixed upon Jane. "She is as sorry and repentant as she can be. Her only hope right now, Joe, is that we'll make it up. She used to love you, too, Joe. You are the only man she ever did love. Let's wave our hands to her so she will understand that—we have come to an understanding."
"Oh, Ann, do you mean—" But Ann, with a flushed, happy face, was waving her hand at her old enemy. As for Boyd, he lowered his head to the fence and sobbed. ”

“ This reproof, tempered with sweetness, had a salutary effect on Ann. She sat up, and ate her sweet cake and simballs, and sobbed out her contrition to grandma, and there was a marked improvement in her conduct for some days.
Mrs. Polly was a born driver. She worked hard herself, and she expected everybody about her to. The tasks which Ann had set her did not seem as much out of proportion, then, as they would now. Still, her mistress, even then, allowed her less time for play than was usual, though it was all done in good faith, and not from any intentional severity. ”

“ Ann nodded. "That may be so, but you are more alive than most of us even now. I don't know anybody who takes so much interest in life, who has such a capacity for enjoyment, who burdens herself with other people's burdens as that same Mrs. Douglas who says she is only half-alive and longs to depart—and here is Mysie with the tea." ”

“ Ann suddenly crouched down till she could peer between the lower rails of the fence. She held her breath while the girl was passing, then she clasped her hands over her knees and chuckled. "It's her!" she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed for everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a net of damnation."
When Virginia was thirty or forty yards away, Ann cautiously climbed over the fence, almost swearing in impatience as she pulled her skirts from the detaining clutch of thorns, briers, and splinters, and with her head down she followed. ”

“ Into Miss Ann's pale blue eyes shot a gleam of nervous anxiety.
Sweetie-weet chirped, interrogatively.
Then Miss Ann, recovering, clasped her hands. "Ah, what a beautiful definition!" she said. "What could be more pure, more perfect?"
Miss Charteris knew a love of a very different kind, which was absolutely pure, and altogether perfect. But that was the love she had put from her.
"A woman could hardly marry a book," she said.
Miss Ann gave a little deprecatory shriek. "Darling child!" she cried. "No simile, however beautiful, should be pressed too far! ”

“ For the next two years, Ann's position in the family grew to be more and more that of a daughter. If it had not been for the indentures lying serenely in that tall wooden desk, she would almost have forgotten, herself, that she was a bound girl.
One spring afternoon, when Ann was about sixteen years old, her mistress called her solemnly into the fore-room. “Ann,” said she, “come here, I want to speak to you.” ”

“ She knew that she would have been brilliant and fascinating, if she had not been repressed; with all her faults, there was a more feminine yieldingness about her, than about herself. There was an affectionate pathos in her voice, a tender grace in her air, when she asked to sympathize in her sorrow. Ann felt for the first time fully, that she was one to love, and be beloved in the social circle. She felt that she had been most ungenerous to absorb all the attention of her friends, instead of bringing forward the reserved, sensitive Christine. ”

“ Two nights later, when the stars had come out to look down at the Green Glen and the curtains were drawn in Dreams, Ann sat down before a small table on which lay a pile of paper and a fountain-pen, and told her mother that she was now ready to write her Life.
"But how do you begin a Life?" Mrs. Douglas asked. She was sitting in her favourite low chair, doing what she called her "reading." Beside her was a pile of devotional books, from each of which she read the portion for the day. Nothing would make her miss this ceremony, and she carted the whole pile about with her wherever she went. ”

“ Ann went into the kitchen with a quaking heart. It was empty and still. Its very emptiness and stillness seemed to reproach her. There stood the desk—she ran across to it, pulled the indentures from her pocket, put them in their old place, and shut the lid down. There they staid till the full and just time of her servitude had expired. She never disturbed them again.
On account of the grief and confusion incident on Deacon Wales' death, she escaped with very little censure. She never made an attempt to run away again. ”

“ Ann drove the Belcher cows home and ushered them into Samuel Wales' barnyard with speed. Then she went demurely into the house. The table looked beautiful. Ann was beginning to quake inwardly, though she still was hugging herself, so to speak, in secret enjoyment of her own mischief. She had one hope—that supper would be eaten before her master milked. But the hope was vain. When she saw Mr. Wales come in, glance her way, and then call his wife out, she knew at once what had happened, and begun to tremble—she knew perfectly what Mr. Wales was saying out there. ”