"But she can be with us the rest part, when you've got done with her."
"I haven't begun to get done with her," said Annie. "I'm glad Mr. Bolton
asked."
After breakfast Bolton himself appeared, to ask if Idella might go up to
the orchard with him. Idella ran out of the room and came back with her hat
on, and tugging to get into her shabby little sack. Annie helped her with
it, and Idella tucked her hand into Bolton's loose, hard fist, and gave it
a pull toward the door.
"Well, I don't see but what she's goin'," he said.
"Yes; you'd better ask her the next time if _I_ can go," said Annie.
"Well, why don't you?" asked Bolton, humouring the joke. "I guess you'd
enjoy it about as well as any. We're just goin' for a basket of wind-falls
for pies. I guess we ain't a-goin' to be gone a great while."
Annie watched them up the lane from the library window with a queer grudge
at heart; Bolton stiffly lumbering forward at an angle of forty-five
degrees, the child whirling and dancing at his side, and now before and now
after him.
At the sound of wheels on the gravel before the front door, Annie turned
away with such an imperative need of its being Dr. Morrell's buggy that it
was almost an intolerable disappointment to find it Mrs. Munger's phaeton.
Mrs. Munger burst in upon her in an excitement which somehow had an effect
of premeditation.
"Miss Kilburn, I wish to know what you think of Mr. and Mrs. Putney's
behaviour to me, and Mr. Peck's, in my own house, last night. They are
friends of yours, and I wish to know if you approve of it. I come to
you _as_ their friend, and I am sure you will feel as I do that my
hospitality has been abused. It was an outrage for Mr. Putney to get
intoxicated in my house; and for Mr. Peck to attack me as he did before
everybody, because Mr. Putney had taken advantage of his privileges, was
abominable. I am not a member of his church; and even if I were, he would
have had no right to speak so to me."
Annie felt the blood fly to her head, and she waited a moment to regain her
coolness. "I wonder you came to ask me, Mrs. Munger, if you were so sure
that I agreed with you. I'm certainly Mr. and Mrs. Putney's friend, and
so far as admiring Mr. Peck's sincerity and goodness is concerned, I'm
_his_ friend. But I'm obliged to say that you're mistaken about the
rest."