Aunt Luna’s reply was satisfactory, and after making some change in the adjustment of the shawl on the arm of her chair, and lifting her dress so as to show her high-heeled slipper with its scarlet rosette, Annie was ready for her visitor. Nor had she long to wait ere a step was heard on the stairs, and Aunt Luna opened the door to Edna. Jack had said she was young and small, but neither Aunt Luna nor Annie was prepared for any one so very young looking and so small as the little lady who asked if Mr. Heyford lived there, and announced herself as Mrs. Churchill. “Yes, he do live here,” a blithe voice replied, and Edna walked straight up to the chair whence the voice came, and bending over the little girl kissed her tenderly, saying: “And you are Annie, I know.” “And you are Mrs. Churchill,” Annie said, winding her arms around Edna’s neck. “Jack said I’se sure to love you, and I know it, without his saying so.” That was their introduction to each other, and they grew familiar very fast, so that before lunch was ready, Annie had told Edna how funny it seemed to think her a big married woman, and how glad she was she had come, and how sure she was to love her. “I think I begin to know what Aunt Luna meant by God’s making it up to me,” she said, after a moment’s silence, during which she had been holding and caressing Edna’s hand. Edna looked inquiringly at her, and she continued: “I was so sorry about Georgie,—that’s sister, you know. You seen her, Jack said.” “Yes.” And Edna gave a little shiver as she recalled the face which had looked so coldly and proudly upon her. It had evidently never looked thus to this little child, who went on: “I cried so hard when she didn’t come, and was kind of mad at Heaven, I guess, and Aunt Luna talked and said how He’d make it up some way, if I was good, and so He sent me you, though it’s funny you didn’t go back with that poor man. He was your beau, wasn’t he?” “Yes, my husband,” Edna faltered, adding: “I was sick, hurt, you know.” She could not explain why she had not gone with her husband’s body, as it seemed natural that she should have done. Neither did Annie wait for any explanation, but went on talking in her old-fashioned way, which greatly surprised Edna, who was not much accustomed to children. Annie was an odd mixture of childish simplicity and womanly maturity. From having lived all her life with no other companions than grown-up people, she was in some respects much older than her years, and astonished Edna with her shrewd remarks and her mature ways of thinking. Georgie was the theme of which she never tired, and Edna found herself feeling more lenient toward the haughty woman whom she had instinctively disliked. There must be something good in her, or this little child would not love her so devotedly.