“I hate to seem to overpersuade you, but, Anna, if there’s any way in the world you can manage it, I should be more than grateful to you,” he said earnestly. “Already, I know, I am under tremendous obligation to you. You have done more for Mrs. Langley--and for me--than I can ever begin to thank you for. And yet I am asking further grace. But perhaps if you could manage to keep up for a few weeks more, we can get along afterwards.” The girl’s eyes filled with tears. With all the hardship she had known, she had never learned to be ungracious. She couldn’t explain that she was holding out because only so, it seemed to her, could she bring about the desired end, and that she was acting for his ultimate good. She couldn’t tell him that she, a school girl, was treating a grown woman, and the minister’s wife into the bargain, like a naughty, stubborn child. “Really and truly, Mr. Langley, I have thought and planned and tried to do the best I can. But I can’t come to the parsonage any more unless I can bring the baby with me,” she said in a low, desperate voice. “Well, you know best, Anna,” he said in a tone whose kindness could not cloak his intense disappointment. “I am very sorry, and if anything happens that would enable you to change your mind, I am sure you will let me know.” Anna Miller flew to her room and wept. She who had endured with all sweetness much that would have made another bitter, now wept almost bitterly, while little Joe sat beside her on the bed in solemn silence. But presently the girl felt a little hand on her head, uncovered her face and smiled through her tears at the baby’s first attempt at a caress. And he of his own accord cuddled down beside her on the pillow with his cheek against hers. “You darling love!” the girl cried. “But, O, it’s _my_ heart you’ll be breaking instead of Mrs. Langley’s. Here I am with my frame-up to get rid of you, hurting Mr. Langley and disciplining his wife, when if I should make a get-away of it, it would simply kill me dead! And after all, why should I? I have a mind, honey-sweet, to throw over the whole thing, that ginger-coloured old woman with the peppery eyes and all, and let Mr. Langley become a hoary old man as soon as he has a mind to, and just devote myself to you. When are you going to talk, precious? Can’t you say An-na?” Joe, Junior, remained dumb. “Well, I am mighty thankful you can’t--or won’t. For if you could--or would--then I would never in the world let you go. And really, I _must_ put it through. You’d be far better off at the parsonage with the best man in all the world for a daddy, and with a mother that wouldn’t be half bad if she would once give in to your blessed charms--as she is going to do. Besides, you’d belong there, and you don’t here. Ma doesn’t want you round, and you feel it in your sensitive little heart and that’s why you act so queer and offish. But it’ll all come out right--for everybody but poor me. Cheer up, old sport!” CHAPTER XIII