Thoughts like these were about shaping themselves into words, when he caught sight of a figure he had not before observed, and became aware that he was not alone with his mother, as he at first supposed. It was a delicate little figure, not as _petite_ as his sister’s but quite as graceful, with its sloping shoulders and rounded waist, almost too small to suit the theorems of a _Water Cure_, but looking vastly well to Jimmie, whose first thought was that he could span it with his hands. Around the well shaped head the heavy bands of pale brown hair were coiled, forming a large square knot which, falling low upon the neck, gave to the figure a more girlish appearance than Jimmie had expected to find in his sister’s protégée, the _Widow Graham_. He knew it was Annie, by the mourning robe fitting so closely around the slender throat, and for an instant he wished she were not there as he preferred being alone with his mother. But one glance at the sweet face turned toward him as Mrs. Carleton repeated his name, dispelled all such desires, and with a strange sensation, which he attributed to pleasant disappointment, he took the soft, white hand which Annie extended toward him. It was a very small, a very pretty hand, and trembled perceptibly as it lay in Jimmie’s broader, warmer one, while on the pale cheek there was a deep, rich bloom, which Mrs. Carleton herself had never observed before. “I have heard of Mrs. Graham from my sister,” Jimmie said, bowing to her with his usual gallantry, while Annie tried to stammer out some reply, making a miserable failure, and leaving on Jimmie’s mind the impression that she was prejudiced against him, and so would not welcome him home.