“As soon as I am settled, as one has so much more time in the country than in town, I may, after all, take up that course of reading:  would you object?

“It’s a wise saying that every new experience brings some new trouble:  I longed for youth before I married; but to marry after you are old—­that, Anna, is sorrow indeed.

  “Your devoted friend,

    “HARRIET CRANE WEBB.

“P.S.  Don’t send any but the plainest things; for I remember, noble friend, how it pains you to see me overdressed.”

IX

It was raining steadily and the night was cold.  Miss Anna came hurriedly down into the library soon after supper.  She had on an old waterproof; and in one hand she carried a man’s cotton umbrella—­her own—­and in the other a pair of rubbers.  As she sat down and drew these over her coarse walking shoes, she talked in the cheery tone of one who has on hand some congenial business.

“I may get back late and I may not get back at all; it depends upon how the child is.  But I wish it would not rain when poor little children are sick at night—­it is the one thing that gives me the blues.  And I wish infants could speak out and tell their symptoms.  When I see grown people getting well as soon as they can minutely narrate to you all their ailments, my heart goes out to babies.  Think how they would crow and gurgle, if they could only say what it is all about.  But I don’t see why people at large should not be licensed to bring in a bill when their friends insist upon describing their maladies to them:  doctors do.  But I must be going.  Good night.”

She rose and stamped her feet into the rubbers to make them fit securely; and then she came across to the lamp-lit table beside which he sat watching her fondly—­his book dropped the while upon his lap.  He grasped her large strong hand in his large strong hand; and she leaned her side against his shoulder and put her arm around his neck.

“You are getting younger, Anna,” he said, looking up into her face and drawing her closer.

“Why not?” she answered with a voice of splendid joy.  “Harriet is married; what troubles have I, then?  And she patronizes—­or matronizes—­me and tyrannizes over Ambrose:  so the world is really succeeding at last.  But I wish her husband had not asked me first; that is her thorn.”

“And the thorn will grow!”

“Now, don’t sit up late!” she pleaded.  “I turned your bed down and arranged the pillows wrong end out as you will have them; and I put out your favorite night-shirt—­the one with the sleeves torn off above the elbows and the ravellings hanging down just as you require.  Aren’t you tired of books yet?  Are you never going to get tired?  And the same books!  Why, I get fresh babies every few years—­a complete change.”

“How many generations of babies do you suppose there have been since this immortal infant was born?” he asked, laying his hand reverently over the book on his lap as if upon the head of a divine child.