"I'm going to tell him what Madame Beattie told me." Lydia's colour was
high. She looked prodigiously excited, and as if something was so
splendid it could hardly be true. And then, as Anne continued to stare
at her with last night's stare, she added, not as if she launched a
thunderbolt, but as giving Anne something precious that would please her
very much: "I'm going to engage him for Jeffrey's case. Get your hat,
Anne. Or your parasol. My nose doesn't burn as yours does. Come, come."

She stood there impatiently tapping her foot as she used to, years ago,
when mother was slow about taking her out in the p'ram. Anne turned
away.

"You're a Silly Billy," said she. "You're not going to see Mr. Choate."

"Won't you go with me?" Lydia inquired.

"No, of course I sha'n't. And you won't go, either."

"Yes, I shall," said Lydia. "I'm gone."

And she was, out of the door and down the walk. Anne, following
helplessly a step, thought she must be running, she was so quickly lost.
But Lydia was not running. With due respect, taught her by Anne, for the
customs of Addington, she had put on her head the little
white-rose-budded hat she had snatched from the hall and fiercely pinned
it, and she was walking, though swiftly, in great decorum to Madison
Street where the bank was and the post-office and the best stores, and
upstairs in the great Choate building, the office of Alston Choate.
Lydia tapped at the office door, but no one answered. Then she began to
dislike her errand, and if it had not been for the confounding of Anne,
perhaps she would have gone home. She tapped again and hurt her
knuckles, and that brought her courage back.

"Come in," called a voice, much out of patience, it seemed. She opened
the door and there saw Alston Choate, his feet on the table, reading
"Trilby." Alston thought he had a right to at least one chapter; he had
opened his mail and dictated half a dozen letters, and the stenographer,
in another room, was writing them out. He looked up under a frowning
brow, and seeing her there, a Phillis come to town, shy, rosy,
incredible, threw his book to the table and put down his feet.

"I beg your pardon," said he, getting up, and then Lydia, seeing him in
the attitude of conventional deference, began to feel proper supremacy.
She spoke with a demure dignity of which the picturesque value was well
known to her.

"I've come to engage you for our case."

He stared at her an instant as Anne had, and s