“I think so,” said little Anne, doubtfully. “In school last winter I was like that. Sister said I must be growing, but it was tonsils. Afterward they found out they were swollen. I didn’t remember to tell, but they looked and saw.” “My tonsils are all right, and I hardly think I am growing. Do you suppose it could be that I am grown--grown old, Anne?” suggested Miss Carrington. “Well,” said little Anne, delicately, “I don’t think when a person is seven--although I’m ’most eight--you can tell so well when people are old. I don’t believe you are, or anyway, not much. My mother seems not--not quite so old, but there’s Mr. Allen, the grocer’s father who carries things when there’s no boy, he’s much, much older! And you are so quick, Miss Carrington, when you’re not lying down and are feeling well! Oh, no; I’m sure it isn’t being old! Could I read to you, do you s’pose? I can read pretty well, much better than I can do arithmetic.” “I hardly think that I should enjoy your doing arithmetic half as well as reading, child,” said Miss Carrington. “I should not care to have you add up my totals. I am a lonely, disappointed failure, little Anne, with nothing before me but to die. And I don’t know how to die!” Instantly little Anne jumped up and caught Miss Carrington around the neck. She kissed her cold cheek hard, crying: “I know how to die! I know just how; I almost did die. It’s as easy! I’ll love you and come to see you lots. What shall I read?” “Suppose we try ‛Cranford’: I’d like to see you reading it. You are as appropriate to it as an illustration. It is that red leather book on the table. Do you think you can get on with it?” “If the words are not too long, and if the sense isn’t sort of underneath,” said little Anne, possessing herself of the book. She bestowed herself on a straight chair beside Miss Carrington’s couch, her feet on a stool, fluttering the pages, her dark, short hair falling forward around her eager face. She made a dear little Reynolds picture, Miss Carrington thought, feeling that she had been wise to send for Anne. “Don’t you think it’s strange the way meaning of books gets ’way underneath, when the words on top are quite easy? Sometimes when I understand all the words I don’t understand the book one bit. Oh, what very nice pictures!” Little Anne looked appreciatively at Hugh Thompson’s beruffled ladies and small-waisted gentlemen. “Shall I begin at the beginning? I can’t stay to read it all, I’m afraid, because I’m going to Mr. Latham’s. He called me to the telephone, me, myself, and told me to come because he had something splendid to tell me. And I talked to him and told him I’d come, and he could hear me perfec’ly; he said so. What shall I read, please?” “Shut your eyes and open the book, and read wherever it opens,” said Miss Carrington. The reading was but begun when Miss Carrington held up a finger. “I hear Miss Abercrombie coming with a friend of hers. We can’t read, Anne. They are coming up.”