He bit into an apple. An expression of perfect contentment illuminated his countenance and in a voice husky with fruit began: "Oh, here is a lovely one, Anna," and he declaimed, after the style usually employed by students of the first reader.

"Weary Raggles: 'Say, Ragsy, w'y don't you ask 'em for something to eat in dat house. Is you afraid of de dog?'"

"Ragsy Reagan: 'No, I a-i-n-t 'fraid of the dog, but me pants is frayed of him.'"

"Ha, ha, ha--say, Anna, that's the funniest thing I ever did see. The tramp wasn't frayed of him, but his pants was 'fraid of him. Gee, ain't that a funny joke? And say, Anna, there's a picture with his clothes all torn."

Hi was fairly convulsed; he read till the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"'Pickin's from Puck, the funniest book ever wrote.' Here's another, Anna."

"'A p-o-o-r old man was sunstruck on Broadway this morning. His son struck him for five dollars.'" Hi sat pondering over it for a full minute, then he burst into a loud guffaw that continued so long and uproariously that neither heard the continued rapping on the front door.

"Hi, some one is knocking on the front door. Do go and see who it is."

"O! let 'em knock, Anna; don't let's break up our party for strangers."

"Well, Hi, I'll have to go myself," and she laid down the corn-popper, but the boy got up grumbling, lurched to the door and let in Lennox Sanderson.

"'Tain't n.o.body at home, Mr. Sanderson," said Hi, inhospitably blocking the way. Anna had crouched over the fire, as if to obliterate herself.

"Here, Hi, you take this and go out and hold my horse; he's mettlesome as the deuce this cold weather. I want to get warm before I go to Putnam's."

Hi put on his m.u.f.fler, mits and cap--each with a favorite "swear word,"

such as "ding it," "dum it," "darn it." Nevertheless he wisely concluded to take the half dollar from him and save it for the spring crop of circuses.

Anna started to leave the room, but Sanderson's peremptory "Stay here, I've got to talk to you," detained her.

They looked into each other's faces--these two, who but a few short months ago had been all in all to each other--and the dead fire was not colder than their looks.

"Well, Anna," he said sneeringly, "what's your game? You've been hanging about here ever since I came to the neighborhood. How much do you want to go away?"

"Nothing that you could give me, Lennox Sanderson. My only wish is that I might be spared the sight of you."

"Don't beat around the bush, Anna; is it money, or what? You are not foolish enough to try to compel me to marry you?"

"Nothing could be further from my mind. I did think once of compelling you to right the wrong you have done me, but that is past. It is buried in the grave with my child."

"Then the child is dead?" He came over to the fireplace where she stood, but she drew away from him.

"You have nothing to fear from me, Lennox Sanderson. The love I felt once is dead, and I have no feeling for you now but contempt."

"You need not rub it in like that, Anna. I was perfectly willing to do the square thing by you always, but you flared up, went away, and Heaven only knew what became of you. It's bad enough to have things made unpleasant for me in Boston on your account without having you queering my plans here."

"Boston--I never told anyone in Boston."

"No, but that row got into the papers about Langdon and the Tremonts cut me."

"Hush," said Anna, as a spasm of pain crossed her face: "I never wish you to refer to my past life again."

"Indeed, Anna, I am only too anxious to do the right thing by you, even now. If you will go away, I will give you what you want, if you don't intend to interfere between Kate and me."

"Are you sure that Kate is in earnest? You know that the Squire intends her to marry Dave."

"I shall have no difficulty in preventing that if you don't interfere."

She did not answer. She was again considering the same old question that she had thrashed out a thousand times--should she tell Kate? How would she take it? Would the tragedy of her life be regarded as a little wild-oat sowing on the part of Sanderson and her own eternal disgrace?

The man was in no humor for her silence. He grasped her roughly by the arm, and his voice was raised loud in angry protest. "Tell me--do you, or do you not intend to interfere?"

In the excitement of the moment neither heard the outer door open, and neither heard David enter. He stood in his quiet way, looking from one to the other. Sanderson's angry question died away in some foolish commonplace, but David had heard and Anna and Sanderson knew it.

CHAPTER XV.

DAVID CONFESSES HIS LOVE.

"Come live with me and be my love; And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Woods, or steep mountains, yield."--_Marlowe_.

Sanderson, recovering his self-possession almost immediately, drawled out:

"Glad to see you, Dave. Came over thinking I might be in time to go over to Putnam's with your people. They had gone, so I stopped long enough to get warm. I must be going now. Good-night, Miss--Miss"--(he seemed, to have great difficulty in recalling the name) "Moore."

David paid no attention to him; his eyes were riveted on Anna, who had changed color and was now like ivory flushing into life. She trembled and fell to her knees, making a pretense of gathering up her knitting that had fallen.

"What brought Sanderson here, Anna? Is he anything to you--are you anything to him?"

She tried to a.s.sume a playful lightness, but it failed dismally. It was all her pallid lips could do to frame the words: "Why, Mr. David, what a curious question! What possible interest could the 'catch' of the neighborhood have in your father's servant?"

The suggestion of flippancy that her words contained irritated the grave, quiet man as few things could have done. He turned from her and would have left the room, but she detained him.

"I am sorry I wounded you, Mr. David, but, indeed, you have no right to ask."

"I know it, Anna, and you won't give me the right; but how dared that cub Sanderson speak to you in that way?" He caught her hand, and unconsciously wrung it till she cried out in pain. "Forgive me, dear, I would not hurt you for the world; but that man's manner toward you makes me wild."

She looked up at him from beneath her long, dark lashes; he thought her eyes were like the glow of forest fires burning through brushwood. "We will never think of him again, Mr. David. I a.s.sure you that I am no more to Mr. Sanderson than he is to me, and that is--nothing."

"Thank you for those words, Anna. I cannot tell you how happy they make me. But I do not understand you at all. Even a countryman like me can see that you have never been used to our rough way of living; you were never born to this kind of thing, and yet when that man Sanderson looks at you or talks to you, there is always an undertone of contempt in his look, his words."

She sank wearily into an armchair. It seemed to her that her limit of endurance had been reached, but he, taking her silence for acquiescence, lost no time in following up what he fondly hoped might be an advantage. "I did not go to the Putnams to-night, Anna, because you were not going, and there is no enjoyment for me when you are not there."

"Mr. David, if you continue to talk to me like this I shall have to leave this house."

"Tell me, Anna," he said so gravely that the woman beside him knew that life and death were balanced with her words: "tell me, when you said that day last autumn by the well that you never intended to marry, was it just a girl's coquetry or was there some deeper reason for your saying so?"