After luncheon and a decisive talk with Mrs. Ann, she had pleaded
that he ought to remain with them at the shore. She was sure he needed it
and it would set her mind at ease. He told her what she knew well enough,
how impossible it would be for him to leave the mills and be absent long.
She who rarely manufactured difficulties now began to ask how this was to
be done and that, until Rivers said at last, "I can promise to read at
the hospital until I go away for my August holiday."
"You would not know the kind of things to read."
"No one could do it as well as you," said Rivers, "but I can try."
"Everything will be cared for, Ann," said Penhallow, "only don't worry."
"I never worry," she returned, rising. "You men think everything will run
along easily without a woman's attention."
"Oh, but Ann, my dear Ann!" exclaimed Penhallow, not knowing what more to
say, annoyed at the discussion and at her display of unnecessary temper
and the entire loss of her usual common sense.
She said, with a laugh in which there was no mirth, "I presume one of you
will, of course, run my sewing-class?"
"Ann--Ann!" said the Squire.
Rivers understood her now in the comprehending sympathy of his own too
frequent moods of melancholy. "Ah!" he murmured, "if I could but teach
her how to knit the ravelled sleeve of care.
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