“O no, Mrs. Lorraine. I’m really wild to go--in a way,” Anna declared. “I’m sure everything’s going to be all right to-day, only--I seem to be pulled all ways at once. You see--well,--Freddy came to me this morning in tears and said he heard ma advising pa not to buy a piano-forte--not to put his money into it. She said with an extra mouth to feed he’d better hold on to it.” “Well, perhaps there isn’t any special hurry about the piano,” Mrs. Lorraine returned, not venturing to express at this time the sympathy she felt. And she endeavoured to distract Anna’s attention by speaking of the butter she and Miss Penny had made that week, the market price and the new mould. And Anna forgot her own perplexities and was quite herself when they reached the parsonage. It was Bell Adams who met her at the door to-day. The expression on her face was such as to puzzle Anna and rather to frighten her. She spoke in hoarse whispers and made strange grimaces, and suddenly Anna’s heart failed her. But she had promised. Slipping off the baby’s wraps hastily, she took him and hurried to the door of Mrs. Langley’s room without stopping to remove her own jacket. She opened the door desperately. Just within, she paused. She expected a change, but--what had happened? CHAPTER XVI The blinds were raised high and the sun streamed in over so brilliant a Brussels carpet that the carefully cherished one in Miss Penny’s parlour would have seemed almost dingy beside it. And the dimness having vanished, the room seemed to have expanded--to have thrust out its boundary walls in all directions. Extra furniture had been moved in--though not, probably, on that account--which imparted an hospitable if rather grotesquely amusing air. There were chairs of all shapes and sizes, tables and stands, hassocks, an extra what-not, an Indian cabinet, and such an array of tidies, antimacassars, lambrequins, and afghans as only a country parsonage can collect through various periods and many years of ‘fancy-work.’ One of the larger of the extra tables held the parlour clock, which was surmounted by a bronze statuette representing a barefooted maiden with a pitcher, and the other, the great silver water-pitcher with elves clambering over the handle which had been the wedding gift from the church. The medicine bottles had been cleared away and the stand that had held them was adorned only by the framed photograph of little Ella May’s monument resting on a gay mat of shaded red worsteds. Nevertheless it was not this transformation which the other Miller girl noticed first, nor was it considerable in comparison with the real transformation. After a vague, momentary realisation of the sunshine and the gorgeous purple and crimson roses of the border of the carpet, the girl was lost in wonder as she stared incredulously at the figure in the familiar yet strange arm chair.