“Mind! Of course I would mind, Anna Miller! I--I never could get through it!” “Then I suppose I shall have to see him myself,” remarked Anna tentatively. “Anna, Mr. Langley is an overworked man,” said his wife rather surprisingly. “He has a great deal to do as chairman of the school committee, besides all his church business. Don’t go to him with any such thing as that. And--O Anna, don’t say anything more about it to me. Don’t mention the matter at all when you come next Saturday--or Wednesday, if you can come on Wednesday. I’m all upset.” CHAPTER X In the confusion and excitement which prevailed at the two houses in the South Hollow in which this narrative is concerned, Alice Lorraine’s secret perturbation either remained unnoticed or was attributed to the cause which affected them all. But very shortly Mrs. Lorraine, who had come out of her shell almost unbelievably in her week of companionship with Miss Penny, so that now in the crisis she was a very tower of strength not only to Miss Penny but to the Miller household as well, began to be greatly troubled by her daughter’s demeanour. She had rejoiced at the manner in which the girl had bloomed under Anna’s influence, and had been amazed not only at her capacity for learning and power of adaptability but at the generous warmth and sweetness of her nature. She had believed that a real transformation had taken place. Wherefore she was the more disappointed to discover that, at a moment of crisis, Alice really wasn’t the useful, helpful, sympathetic, understanding girl she had seemed. Anna’s arrival, shorn of her wonderful hair and accompanied by the strange, unattractive, almost uncanny baby, had upset Miss Penny’s household and all but devastated the Millers’. And Alice, who might have cheered the former immensely and have been of great service in restoring equanimity to the other, seemed completely unstrung by the excitement and a subject rather than a source of aid. On Saturday morning, when she caught sight of Alice, who supposed herself alone, wringing her hands as she stood by a window of the living-room looking north, Mrs. Lorraine sighed and said to herself, in Anna’s expressive phrase, that it seemed to be ‘up to’ her. And summoning all her powers, some of which had been awakened of late and others which had lain dormant almost all her life, Henrietta Lorraine started in good earnest to bring some sort of order out of chaos. She began with Miss Penny. It did not take long to reconcile that philosophical and optimistic little lady to the loss of the yard of silken tresses; and after a bit Mrs. Lorraine convinced her that Anna would soon pick up again now that she was at home, would regain at least as many pounds as she seemed to have lost, and would lose the hurt, mournful look that close association with death in such sad circumstances had left in her merry eyes. Moreover, the care of the baby need not fall wholly upon her. There were plenty of people about to help.