r; it left her
empty. "I expect everybody in the world is old," she said. She
watched her hands move about in the hay like great spiders.

"Is it fun to be old, do you think?" asked Juliet.

"I don't know," said Anna. "I don't expect it is, much."

"Mother is old," said Juliet. "What do old people do?"

Anna looked out through the barn door across the wet fields, the
drenched hillsides, shrouded in mist. "I don't know," she said. And
she got up to go home.

"Well, good-by," said Juliet.

Just then Mrs. Wicket came in from the road, with a basket on her arm.
When she saw Anna standing in front of the barn she grew pink and
confused. For she thought that Anna had come to call on her. "Good
afternoon," she said. "I was out. I'm real sorry. Won't you come in?"

"Oh, no," said Anna. "I was going on . . . I only stopped for a
minute. . . ."

And without another word she ran down the path, and out of the gate.
Mrs. Wicket stood looking after her in silence. Then, with a sigh, she
turned, and went indoors. But Anna ran and ran until she was tired.
As she ran she kept saying to herself, over and over, "I won't be like
that, I won't, I won't."

It seemed to her as though she were running away from Hillsboro itself,
running away from Mrs. Wicket, from her mother, from Thomas Frye, from
Anna Barly, from everything she wouldn't be. . . .

"I won't," she cried, "I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't."

"Never."

Mr. Jeminy, who was seated on his coat by the side of the road, got up
with a smile. "Well, Anna Barly," he said.

"Ak," she whispered, clapping both hands to her mouth, "how you scared
me." She could feel her heart beating with fright; her lips trembled,
her eyes filled with tears. She stood staring at Mr. Jeminy, who
stared gravely back at her. "Are you going to run away from me, too?"
he asked, at last.

"No," said Anna. Then, all at once, she burst out crying. "I can't
help it," she cried, between her sobs. "I can't help it. Don't look
at me."

"No," said Mr. Jeminy, "I won't." And he gazed up at the tree tops,
dark and sharp against the cold, gray sky.

Anna cried herself out. Then pale and ashamed, she started home again
with Mr. Jeminy. "I don't know what got into me," she said. "I don't
know what you'll think."

"I think," declared Mr. Jeminy, looking up at the sky, "I think--why, I
think this wet weather will pass, Anna Barly. Yes, to-morrow will be
cold and clear."