spent this money when, as had happened more than
once during the last few weeks, she had been disagreeably
short.

And then she went out, walking very quietly
through the hall. She did not feel as if she wanted
old Anna to know that she had heard from Germany.
It would be hard enough to have to tell Rose the
dreadful thing which, bringing such anguish to herself,
could only give the girl, absorbed in her own
painful ordeal, a passing pang of sympathy and regret.

Poor old Anna! Mrs. Otway was well aware that
as the days went on Anna became less and less pleasant
to live with.

Not for the first time of late, she wondered uneasily
if Miss Forsyth had been right, on that August
day which now seemed so very long ago. Would
it not have been better, even from Anna's point of
view, to have sent her back to her own country, to
Berlin, to that young couple who seemed to have so
high an opinion of her, and with whom she had spent
so successful a holiday three years ago? At the time
it had seemed unthinkable, a preposterous notion,
but now -- Mrs. Otway sighed -- now it was only too
clear that old Anna was not happy, and that she
bitterly resented the very slight changes the War had
made in her own position.

Anna was even more discontented and unhappy than
her mistress knew. True, both Mrs. Otway and Rose
had given her their usual Christmas gifts, and one of
these gifts had been far more costly than ever before.
But there had been no heart for the pretty Tree which,

[[277]]

p276 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p277w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p278

v?