“Here, Anna,” she said, struggling to recover her composure, “take this bucket and get it filled for me, please.”

The girl reached for her cloak that hung on a peg near the door.

“No, Anna, you shall not go out for water a night like this; it’s not the work for you to do.”  David had sprung forward and caught the bucket from her hand and plunged with it into the storm.  Kate’s quick eyes caught the expression of David’s face—­while Mrs. Bartlett only heard his words.  She gave Anna a searching look as she said:  “So it is you whom David loves.”  At last Kate understood the secret of Anna’s distracted face—­and at last the mother understood the secret of her boy’s moodiness—­he loved Anna.  And her heart was filled with bitterness and anger at the very thought; she had taken her boy, this stranger, with whom the tongue of scandal was busy.  The kindly, gentle, old face lost all its sweetness; jealous anger filled it with ugly lines.  Turning to Anna she said: 

“It would have been better for all of us if we had not taken you in that day to break up our home with your mischief.”

Anna was cut to the quick.  “Oh, Mrs. Bartlett, please do not say that; I will go away as soon as you like, but it is not with my consent that David has these foolish fancies about me.”

“And do you mean to say that you have never encouraged him,” indignantly demanded the irate mother, who with true feminine inconsistency would not have her boy’s affections go begging, even while she scorned the object of it.

“Encouraged him?  I have begged, entreated him to let me alone; I do not want his love.”

An angry sparrow defending her brood could not have been more indignantly demonstrative than this gentle old lady.

“And isn’t he good enough for you, Miss?” she asked in a voice that shook with wrath.

“Dear Mrs. Bartlett, would you have me take his love and return it?”

“No, no; that would never do!” and the inconsistent old soul rocked herself to and fro in an agony of despair.

Anna did not resent Mrs. Bartlett’s indignation, unjust though it was; she knew how blind good mothers could be when the happiness of their children is at stake.  She felt only pity for her and remembered only her kindness.  So slipping down on her knees beside the old lady’s chair, she took the toil-worn old hands in her own and said: 

“Do not think hardly of me, Mrs. Bartlett.  You have been so good—­and when I am gone, I want you to think of me with affection.  I will go away, and all this trouble will straighten itself out, and you will forget that I ever caused you a moment’s pain.”

Dave came in with the bucket of water that had caused the little squall and prevented his mother from replying, but the hard lines had relaxed in the good old face.  She was again “mother” whom they all knew and loved.  Sanderson followed close after David; he had just come from Boston, he said, and inquired for Kate with a simple directness that left no doubt as to whom he had come to see.