Anne laughed.  “I ate ever so many cakes.  They were so good—­as good as Aunt Charity’s.  Please—­where is Aunt Charity?”

“Aunt Charity who?” asked Mrs. Collins.

“Our old Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard that used to live here.”

“Oh!  You mean them old darkies.  They moved away the year we come here.  They—­”

“Mammy, I want to know her name,” insisted Lizzie, in an undertone.  “And I want to see her doll in my own hands.”

“My name is Anne Lewis,” Anne informed her.  “My doll is named Mrs. Emily Patterson but I call her Honey-Sweet.”

“That’s a mighty pretty dress,” said Lizzie, admiringly.

“I made it, all but the buttonholes,” Anne answered proudly.  “Martha did those.”

“Do her shoes really, truly come off?” asked Lizzie.

“Yes, they do.  And her stockings, too.  Look here.”

The two girls played happily together with Honey-Sweet until Mrs. Collins declared that Anne was tired and tucked her away with Lizzie in a trundle-bed.

“I dunno when I’ve set up so late,” the good woman said to her husband, as she wound up the clock.  “It’s near nine o’clock.  But one thing I tell you, Peter Collins, afore I get a mite of sleep—­Nobody’s going to send that po’ child back to the ’sylum she’s runned away from.  Tain’t no use for you to say a word.”

“Is I said a word?” asked Mr. Collins.

“That po’ thing ain’t goin’ to be drug back to no ’sylum,” pursued his wife.  “She shall stay here long as she’s a mind to—­till her folks come for her—­or till she gets grown—­or something.  And she shall have all she wants to eat, sho as my name’s Lizabeth Collins.  I’ve heard tell of them ‘sylums.  They say the chillen don’t have nothin’ to eat or wear but what folks give ’em.  Think of them with their po’ little empty stomachs settin’ waitin’ for somebody to think to send ’em dinner!  I’m goin’ to make a jar full of gingercakes fust thing in the mornin’ and put it on the pantry shelf where that child can he’p herself.—­Anne, uh!  Anne!—­She’s ’sleep.  I jest wondering if she’d rather have gingercakes or tea-cakes dusted with sugar and cinnamon.  Peter Collins!  I tell you, you got to work and pervide for yo’ chillen.  I couldn’t rest in my grave if I thought one of them’d ever have to go to a ’sylum.  I see you last week give a knife to that Hawley boy.—­What if he was name for you?—­I don’t keer if it didn’t cost but ten cent.  You’ll land in the po’ house and yo’ chillen in ‘sylums if you throw away yo’ money on tother folks’ chillens.—­Peter, fust thing in the morning you catch me a chicken to fry for that po’ child’s breakfast.  And remind me—­to git out—­a jar of honey,” she concluded drowsily.

CHAPTER XXII

The next morning, after Anne insisted that she could not possibly eat any more corn-cakes or biscuits or toast or fried apples or chicken or ham or potato-cakes or molasses or honey, Mrs. Collins picked her up and put her in a rocking-chair by the south window.