that the dear ones at Spring Bank were mingling in the same service.
She could not even join in the responses at first for the bitterness at
her heart, the knowing how much she was despised by the proud ladies
beside her.

Very close she kept Willie at her side, allowing him occasionally as he
grew tired to stand upon the cushion, a proceeding highly offensive to
the Misses Richards and highly gratifying to the row of tittering
schoolgirls in the seat behind him. Willie always attracted attention,
and numerous were the compliments paid to his infantile beauty by the
younger portion of the congregation, while the older ones, they who
remembered the doctor when a boy, declared that Willie Markham was
exactly like him, when standing in the seat he kept the children in
continual excitement by his restless movements and pretty baby ways.

The fire burned brightly in Anna's room when Adah returned from church,
and Anna herself was waiting for her, welcoming her back with a smile
which went far toward removing the pain still heavy at her heart. Anna
saw something was the matter, but it was her sisters who enlightened her
as together they ate their Sunday dinner in the little breakfast room
where Anna joined them.

"Such impudence," Eudora said. "She had not heard one word of Mr.
Howard's sermon, for keeping her book and dress and fur away from that
little torment."

Then followed the story in detail, how "Markham had sat in their seat,
parading herself up there just for show, while Willie had kissed the
picture of little Samuel in Asenath'a book and left thereon the print of
his lips. If Anna would have a maid, they did wish she would get one not
quite so affected as Markham, one who did not try to attract attention
by assuming the airs of a lady," and with this the secret was out.

Adah was too pretty, too stylish, to suit the prim Eudora, who felt
keenly how she must suffer by comparison with her sister's waiting maid.
Even unsuspicious Anna saw the point, and smiling archly asked "what she
could do to make Rose less attractive."

In some things Anna could not have her way, and when her mother and
sisters insisted that they would not keep a separate table for Markham,
as they called Adah, she yielded, secretly bidding Pamelia see that
everything was comfortable and nice for Mrs. Markham and her little boy.
There was hardly need for this injunction, for in the kitchen Adah was
regarded as far superior to those who woul