or curtains, ran along the valance of
each bed, and edged each pillow and cushion. Anna had worked miles of it
since she first came to the Trellis House, for there were balls of
crochet work rolled up in all her drawers, and when she was not occupied
in doing some form of housework she was either knitting or crocheting.
The old German woman never stirred without her little bag, itself gaily
embroidered, to hold her _Hand Arbeit_; and very heartily, as Mrs. Otway
knew well, did she despise the average Englishwoman for being able to
talk without a crochet-hook or a pair of knitting-needles in her hands.

Something--not much, but just a little--of what her mistress was feeling
with regard to Major Guthrie gradually reached Anna's perceptions, and
made her feel at once uncomfortable, scornful, and angry.

Anna felt the deepest sympathy for her darling nursling, Miss Rose; for
it was natural, warming-to-the-heart, that a young girl should feel
miserable about a young man. In fact, Rose's lack of interest in
marriage and in the domesticities had disturbed and puzzled good old
Anna, and to her mind had been a woeful lack in the girl.

So she had welcomed, with great sympathy, the sudden and surprising
change. Anna shrewdly suspected the truth, namely, that Rose was Jervis
Blake's secret betrothed. She felt sure that something had happened on
the morning young Mr. Blake had gone away, during the long half-hour the
two young people had spent together. On that morning, immediately after
her return home, Rose had gone up to her room, declaring that she had
had breakfast--though she, Anna, knew well that the child had only had
an early cup of tea....

But if Anna sympathised with and understood the feelings of the younger
of her two ladies, she had but scant toleration for Mrs. Otway's
restless, ill-concealed unhappiness. Even in the old days Anna had
disapproved of Major Guthrie, and she had thought it very strange indeed
that he came so often to the Trellis House. To her mind such conduct was
unfitting. What on earth could a middle-aged man have to say to the
mother of a grown-up daughter?

Of course Anna knew that marriages between such people are sometimes
arranged; but to her mind they are always marriages of convenience, and
in this case such a marriage would be very inconvenient to everybody,
and would thoroughly upset all her, Anna's, pleasant, easy way of life.
A widower with children has naturally to find a woman to l