“Dear me, Mr. Langley, I am ashamed to say that for the moment I can’t recollect what we were discussing,” said Miss Penny in dismay. Alice smiled, but wanly. “I was telling Miss Penny that I am really too happy, Mr. Langley,” she said. “I am happier than I have ever been before. As far back as I can remember, the days were always long, I got tired of everything and was bored the greater part of the time. I cared for nothing but my music, and I never enjoyed that as I do going about with Anna and listening to Miss Penny and learning to make bread and doughnuts. And--there’s poor mother at home thinking of--my father. And I-I have to _make_ myself think of him.” “But my dear Miss Lorraine, you are doing this in large part for your mother. You are sitting at the feet of Miss Penny in order to learn how to make one of the most attractive cottages ever built into a real home for her. And while you are broadening your life with these new influences which seem more congenial than those you have known before, no doubt you are enriching your mother’s life as well? You tell her of all that takes place, I dare say?” “Everything. And she is interested and forgets--for a little. And Anna goes in and--mother loves Anna already.” He turned smilingly to Miss Penny. “Anna is more like you, Miss Penny, after all, than any other of your foster children,” he said and then went on talking to Alice. As he rose to take leave, he told Alice he hoped her mother might meet Miss Penny before long. At the door, he kept her a minute. “Don’t feel guilty when you forget your father and don’t force yourself to think of him, Miss Lorraine,” he said earnestly. “Open your whole heart to the new life and help your mother in her much harder task of reconciling herself to a new future. Write your father, and if he gets the impression he should from your letters, he will conclude that your life isn’t going to be spoiled and--why, that will surely make a great difference to him.” There was a blur before the girl’s eyes so that she couldn’t see the minister’s figure at the gate. Instead of returning to the sitting-room she stole upstairs for a few minutes of silence in Anna’s large, pretty chamber where she was always free to go. Entering the room, she started at sight of a figure on the bed. As she saw that it was Anna and that her face was buried in the pillow, her heart grew cold. What had happened. Or hadn’t anything happened? Was it that, all the while the girl was devoted to other interests than her own, some secret sorrow was eating at her heart? CHAPTER VII Early the following afternoon Anna Miller made her way to the parsonage. She announced the fact immediately that she couldn’t stay long to-day. For already the clever girl had, as she put it, ‘sized up’ the lady of the parsonage and knew better than to wait until later and then ‘spring’ the unwelcome fact upon her.