Anne looked and sprang up.
“That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to call,” she said.
“I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that I’ll eavesdrop,” said Gilbert. “From all I’ve heard regarding Miss Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the least.”
“It may be Mrs. Moore.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines. I saw her working in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see clearly, I thought she was rather slender. She doesn’t seem very socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s your nearest neighbor.”
“She can’t be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have brought her,” said Anne. “This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.”
Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any brief and fashionable wedding call. She had her work under her arm in a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard little knob of fair hair. No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please ye! Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were good enough for her. She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face,
