t having little Sally nor having any one else working with her, made
it very hard for Anna ever to go out, for she never thought that
it was right to leave a house all empty. Once in a great while of a
Sunday, Sally who was now working in a factory would come and stay
in the house for the good Anna, who would then go out and spend the
afternoon with Mrs. Drehten.

No, Anna did not see her old friends much any more. She went sometimes
to see her half brother and his wife and her nieces, and they always
came to her on her birthdays to give presents, and her half brother
never left her out of his festive raisined bread giving progresses.
But these relatives of hers had never meant very much to the good
Anna. Anna always did her duty by them all, and she liked her half
brother very well and the loaves of raisined bread that he supplied
her were most welcome now, and Anna always gave her god daughter and
her sister handsome presents, but no one in this family had ever made
a way inside to Anna's feelings.

Mrs. Lehntman she saw very rarely. It is hard to build up new on
an old friendship when in that friendship there has been bitter
disillusion. They did their best, both these women to be friends, but
they were never able to again touch one another nearly. There were too
many things between them that they could not speak of, things that
had never been explained nor yet forgiven. The good Anna still did her
best for foolish Julia and still every now and then saw Mrs. Lehntman,
but this family had now lost all its real hold on Anna.

Mrs. Drehten was now the best friend that Anna knew. Here there was
never any more than the mingling of their sorrows. They talked over
all the time the best way for Mrs. Drehten now to do; poor Mrs.
Drehten who with her chief trouble, her bad husband, had really now no
way that she could do. She just had to work and to be patient and to
love her children and be very quiet. She always had a soothing mother
influence on the good Anna who with her irritable, strained, worn-out
body would come and sit by Mrs. Drehten and talk all her troubles
over.

Of all the friends that the good Anna had had in these twenty years
in Bridgepoint, the good father and patient Mrs. Drehten were the
only ones that were now near to Anna and with whom she could talk her
troubles over.

Anna worked, and thought, and saved, and scolded, and took care of all
the boarders, and of Peter and of Rags, and all the others.