“I want Miss Berkley, Miss Anne Berkley, please,” Richard insisted, and Bibiana turned away with a grunt. “Just little Anne! Anne, come and speak to Mr. Latham. He’s calling you,” she added to the child who had fallen into the habit of loitering at hand when the telephone bell rang, in the faint hope of getting a chance to talk over the wire. “Mr. Latham wants me to come to see him!” cried little Anne after a brief and, on her part, chuckling telephone conversation. “Please, Mother dear, mayn’t I?” “Why, yes. He must be lonely,” Mrs. Berkley hesitated. “But don’t--well, there’s no use in trying to forestall your speeches, Anne! I suppose you can’t do any more harm--or was it good? Run along, dear, but first show me your hands and let me brush your hair.” Neat and decorous, little Anne presented herself in the Latham Street house. Richard looked ill, but he smiled at the child, welcoming her warmly. “It’s only a ceremonial call; we aren’t going to play anything, little Anne,” he said. “Do you mind chatting? I felt the need of you, my dear.” Quick little Anne caught the note in his voice. She always stood in awe of the poet, rarely was as perfectly at ease with him as with her other adult friends, but now she ran to him and bestowed herself on the arm of his chair and put her arm around his neck, her cheek on his head, as if he were Peter in trouble. “I think it’s most fun of anything to talk when people will talk sensible and int’resting,” she said. “I’ll try, Anne,” Richard said, weakly. “Do you think that by any chance Anne in your case stands for Anomaly?” “No, just Anne,” said little Anne. “When I’m confirmed I shall take some splendid name for my second one. When I was small I used to think I’d take Ursula, but now sometimes I think Emerentiana; it’s so--so--nobody has it.” “Poor Nobody!” said Richard, falling into his habit of playing with little Anne. “Pretty hard on her to have that name! Where did you get hold of it?” “She was a little girl stoned to death for being a Christian, in the catacombs,” explained Anne. “They pegged rocks at her, those pagans! Don’t you think it must have been awful to have lived in those times? Either you were a Christian and got killed, boiled in oil, and everything; or else you weren’t, and were terribly wicked. And if you weren’t a noble character you might wobble when you had to choose.” Unexpectedly to himself, Richard laughed. “You might, indeed, little Anne! And I was right to invite you to see me. I thought you’d elevate me in mind and spirits! If you were older wouldn’t you come here to help me with my work, read to me, and all that?”