“I should worry. It will be good for me, and a lot less strain on the looking glasses,” the girl owned, shrugging her shoulders. “And anyhow, Mrs. Langley, I never could be sorry, after seeing real things like I saw there: Bessy only barely two years older than I and Hazel just my age, and--O, I’m so thankful it was so long and not thin and that I had sense to think of it in time. Honest and true, I don’t believe I could ever be happy again or sleep nights if we had had to call in--outsiders. But you never could understand that without being right there.” Mrs. Langley sighed again. “Of course I shall sort of miss it,” Anna rattled on. “I used to brush it at night, have it all over me, you know, and Rusty would tease me. And I simply loved the feel of that fat braid flopping about. But it’s just as well, for I sha’n’t have so much time now.” “You look--O, Anna, at this moment you look just as my baby would have looked when she began to run about!” cried Mrs. Langley almost enthusiastically. “But please don’t put on your hat now. You have only just come.” “I really must. Ma thought I ought not to come at all, but I felt as if I must get it over--about my hair, you know.” “Then you’re staying at home,” remarked Mrs. Langley with her occasional acuteness as to the present moment. “When do you go back to Miss Penny?” The girl hesitated. “Not for some little time, Mrs. Langley.” It would have seemed that Mrs. Langley _must_ have asked the desired question. But the invalid was thinking of herself. “O Anna, how very nice! You won’t be nearly so busy, then, and can get over here oftener. I wish you would come regularly in the middle of the week, too. Can you?” she asked promptly. Anna sighed. “The fact is, I’m going to be a heap busier--that’s why I’m staying at home,” she returned obscurely. “But Mrs. Langley, some of the ladies would just love to drop in to see you.” “Anna Miller, I don’t know what you are thinking of,” Mrs. Langley complained feebly, falling back in her chair. “I have been an invalid since my baby died. I couldn’t endure seeing anyone.” “You see me.” “That’s very different. Besides, you took an interest in my baby’s grace. No one else did that. Even the baby’s father----” “O Mrs. Langley,” Anna interrupted quickly, “Mr. Langley doesn’t--he’s a real true-blue Christian, you know. He doesn’t think of Ella May as dead, and so----” “Never mind that. But I wish that if you aren’t going back to Miss Penny’s you’d come right here and stay all the time.” Anna could scarcely restrain a groan. “I’m needed at home,” she said briefly and drew her jacket together. But after all, the real business of her call hadn’t been touched upon. “You knew that there was a baby, too--little Joe, Junior?” she asked. Mrs. Langley assented without interest. “He was left pretty much alone, poor little lamb, wasn’t he?” “I suppose the girl Hazel would look after him?”