“I had to go, grandmother, and there was no harm, but I can’t tell you.  Indeed, I can’t,” replied Annie, trembling.

“Why can’t you?  I’d like to know.”

“I can’t, indeed, I can’t, grandmother.”

“Why not, I’d like to know.  Pretty doings, I call it.”

“I can’t tell you why not, grandmother.”

The old woman eyed the girl.  “Out with a man—­I don’t care if you are engaged to him—­till this time!” said she.

Annie started and crimsoned.  “Oh, grandmother!” she cried.

“I don’t care if he is a minister.  I am going to see him to-morrow, no, to-day, right after breakfast and give him a piece of my mind.  I don’t care what he thinks of me.”

“Grandmother, there wasn’t any man.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“I always tell the truth.”

“Yes, I think you always have since that time when you were a little girl and I spanked you for lying,” said the old woman.  “I rather think you do tell the truth, but sometimes when a girl gets a man into her head, she goes round like a top.  You haven’t been alone, you needn’t tell me that.”

“No, I haven’t been alone.”

“But, he wasn’t with you?  There wasn’t any man?”

“No, there was not any man, grandmother.”

“Then you had better get into your own room as fast as you can and move still or you will wake up Harriet and Susan.”

Annie went.

“I am thankful I am not curious,” said the old woman clambering back into bed.  She lit her lamp and took up her novel again.

The next morning old Ann Maria Eustace announced her granddaughter’s engagement at the breakfast table.  She waited until the meal was in full swing, then she raised her voice.

“Well, girls,” she said, looking first at Harriet, then at Susan, “I have some good news for you.  Our little Annie here is too modest, so I have to tell you for her.”

Harriet Eustace laughed unsuspiciously.  “Don’t tell us that Annie has been writing a great anonymous novel like Margaret Edes,” she said, and Susan laughed also.  “Whatever news it may be, it is not that,” she said.  “Nobody could suspect Annie of writing a book.  I myself was not so much surprised at Margaret Edes.”

To Annie’s consternation, her grandmother turned upon her a long, slow, reading look.  She flushed under it and swallowed a spoonful of cereal hastily.  Then her grandmother chuckled under her breath and her china blue eyes twinkled.

“Annie has done something a deal better than to write a book,” said she, looking away from the girl, and fixing unsparing eyes upon her daughters.  “She has found a nice man to marry her.”

Harriet and Susan dropped their spoons and stared at their mother.

“Mother, what are you talking about?” said Harriet sharply.  “She has had no attention.”

“Sometimes,” drawled the old lady in a way she affected when she wished to be exasperating, “sometimes, a little attention is so strong that it counts and sometimes attention is attention when nobody thinks it is.”