“I am well, I thank you,” said little Anne. “There are many Annes in this place, but we don’t know them all, I s’pose. I didn’t like it long time ago, but I made an act of it, so I could bear my name, and now I like it.” “What did you make of it?” cried Helen. “Anne means an act of mortification. She has many curious bits of vernacular from the nuns who teach her; curious to others. That is one of them,” explained Anne Dallas. “How interesting!” said Helen, by this time surfeited of little Anne and not intending to be drawn into conversation with Anne Dallas. Little Anne was quick to feel atmospheres. She flushed and said vehemently: “The best of all lovely Annes, or anything, is Miss Anne Dallas!” “Indeed that is true, little Anne, though you and I love each other so well,” said Richard Latham. “Miss Dallas stands between me and darkness; between me and silence, between me and inability to do my work, Miss Abercrombie.” “What a beautiful thing to say, Mr. Latham! Miss Dallas must feel recompensed at this moment for all that she has done, all that she will do. Yet I can see how bad it would be for you not to have a good secretary.” Helen smiled toward Anne, and over her. “It would, indeed. But I cannot say that it has ever occurred to me that Miss Dallas was a good secretary,” said Richard, slowly. “Are you too tired to walk about? Do gardens bore you?” “Not such a garden as this one,” said Helen, graciously. “Please let Miss Dallas come with us. Kit will look after the little girl. I am sure that you are accustomed to Miss Dallas’s guidance.” “That is another profoundly true remark, Miss Abercrombie,” said Richard. “You will show our best spots to Miss Abercrombie, in case I pass them, Miss Dallas?” “Gladly,” said Anne, obeying Helen’s gesture to walk at her other hand. “But you know we think them all the best! This garden is one of Mr. Latham’s loveliest, though least-known, poems.” Little Anne slipped her hand into Kit’s and held him back. “Who is she?” she whispered. “Like her?” asked Kit, interested in the reply. Little Anne shook her head hard. “She is like all the things in fairy tales,” she said. “She’s like a cloth-of-gold, and a fairy princess, she’s so beau-ti-ful! But she’s something like Cinderella’s sisters at the ball. No, I don’t like her, not one bit. What does she want to do? Is she going to try to be Mr. Latham’s--you know! His writer? What do you call it?” “Secretary? No, indeed, little Anne! Miss Abercrombie is a royal lady; not even a poet would she serve,” said Kit. “Well, what makes her mean?” asked little Anne, candidly; she had used her keen young eyes and ears to some purpose. “Miss Anne’s ever’n’ ever so much nicer, and ever’n’ ever so much prettier, even if she isn’t, because she looks so kind of dear and sweet. I know she’s being not nice to my Anne, because when anybody isn’t nice to someone I love, and I don’t know what it is they’re doing, that makes me mad, and I remember my vocation.”