Part 15 (1/2)

”It was a dream, of course,” she thought, and said, a shade resentful still,

”I never slept--that way--before.”

”It seems to suit you,” said Ann briskly, ”for you have never left your room till now.”

Then it dawned on her suddenly.

”Why, I am well!” she said.

”Very nearly, I think,” Hester answered her. ”Will you have your breakfast under the tree, while sister picks the berries?”

To this she agreed gladly and found herself, still wondering at the new strength that filled her, under a pear-tree, in a pleasant patch of shadow, eating with relish from Hester's morning tray. Ann knelt not far from her in the sun, not too hot at this hour for a hardy worker, and soon her low humming rose like a bee's note from under her broad hat.

”The wash is all ready for you, sister, on the landing,” she called.

”Tell mother her new towels bleached to a marvel: they are on the currant-bushes now. I'll wet them down and iron them off while the syrup is cooking, I think--I know she's anxious to handle them.”

”Are you always busy, Miss Ann?” her guest inquired, for Ann's fingers never stopped even while she looked toward the house-door.

”Always in the morning, of course,” she answered, directly. ”Every one must be, if things are to get done.”

”But in the afternoon you are ironing, and Miss Hester tells me you do a great deal in the garden. When do you rest?”

”In my bed,” said Ann briefly.

She was less sweetly grave than her sister, and it was easy to see that her tongue was sharper. She would not have been so soothing to an invalid, but the woman under the pear-tree had her nerves better in hand by now, and felt, somehow, upon her mettle to prove to this broad, curt Ann that there were tasks in the world beyond her st.u.r.dy rule-of-thumb.

”But surely every one needs time to think--to consider,” she began gently. ”Don't you find it so?”

”To plan out the day, do you mean?” said Ann, moving to a new patch.

”I generally do that at night before I go to sleep.”

”No, no,” she explained, ”not the day's work--that must be done, of course--but the whole Scheme, life, and one's relation to it...”

”I don't feel any call to study that out,” said Ann. ”I haven't the headpiece for it.”

”No, but some people have, and so----”

”Have you?” said Ann.

She bit her lip.

”It is surely every woman's duty to cultivate herself as far as she can,” she began. ”n.o.body denies that nowadays.”

Ann was silent.

”Don't you agree with me?” the woman persisted. ”You surely know what I mean?”

”Oh, yes, I know what you mean, well enough,” Ann said at last. ”I know you have to cultivate strawberries, if you want to get more of 'em--and bigger. The question is, what do you get out of it?”

A flood of explanations pressed to her lips, but just as they brimmed over, some quick surmise of Ann's shrewd replies choked them back.

After all, what had she got out of it? What that she could show? She rose slowly and walked back to her room, where the bath, fresh, uncreased clothes, and Hester's deft ministry waited ready for her.