“Please, miss, come quick; Miss Anna wants to see you. The little boy is up there with her.” CHAPTER XXVIII. ANNA AND ADAH. For a moment Anna was inclined to think that Pamelia had made a mistake and brought her the wrong individual, but Willie set her right by patting her cheek again, while he called out, “Mamma, arntee.” The look of interest which Anna cast upon him emboldened Adah to say, “Excuse him, Miss Richards; he must have mistaken you for a dear friend at home, whom he calls _Auntie_. I’ll take him down; he troubles you.” “No, no, please not,” and Anna passed her arm around him. “I love children so much. I ought to have been a wife and mother, my brother says, instead of a useless old maid.” Adah was too much a stranger to disclaim against Anna’s calling herself old, so she paid no attention to the remark, but plunged at once into the matter which had brought her there. Presuming they would rather be alone, Pamelia had purposely left the room, meeting in the lower hall with lady Richards, who, in much affright, was searching for the recent occupants of the reception room. She had ordered Dixson to carry them some lunch, and Dixson had returned with the news that there was no woman or child to be seen. Where were they then? Had they decamped, taking with them anything valuable which chanced to be in their way? Of course they had, and Eudora in the parlor, and Asenath in the dining room, and Mrs. Richards in the hall, were hunting for missing articles, when Pamelia quieted them by saying, “The lady was in Miss Anna’s room.” At any other time Mrs. Richards would have corrected her domestic for calling a servant a lady, but she did not mind it now in her surprise. “How came she there?” she said, angrily, while Pamelia replied, evasively, “The little boy got up stairs, and, as children will, walked right into Miss Anna’s room. She was taken with him at once, and asked who he was. I told her and she sent for the lady. That’s how it happened.” It could not now be helped, and Mrs. Richards hurried up to Anna’s chamber, where Willie still was perched by Anna’s pillow, playing with the rings upon her fingers, while Adah, with her bonnet in her lap, sat a little apart, traces of tears and agitation upon her cheeks, but a look of happiness in the eyes fixed so wistfully on Anna’s fair, sweet face. “Please, mother,” said Anna, motioning her away, “leave us alone awhile. Shut the door, and see that no one comes near.” Mrs. Richards obeyed, and Anna, waiting until she was out of hearing, resumed the conversation just where it had been interrupted. “And so you are the one who wrote that advertisement which I read. Let me see—the very night my brother came home from Europe. I remember he laughed because I was so interested, and he accidentally tore off the name to light his cigar so I forgot it entirely. What shall I call you, please?”