Presently Anne crumpled her
steamer rug on the deck and nestled down in it. She chirped to
Honey-Sweet and wiggled her finger at the smiling red mouth, playing she
was a mother-bird bringing a fat worm to her nestling. Hour after hour,
while Miss Drayton and Mrs. Patterson read or talked together, Anne
would sit beside them, sometimes chattering and 'making believe' with
Honey-Sweet, sometimes prattling to her grown-up friends about her old
home in Virginia or her life in New York.
Mrs. Patterson petted her and made dainty frocks for Honey-Sweet. Brisk,
practical Miss Drayton gave Anne spelling lessons and set her problems
in number work, protesting that she was too large a girl to spend all
her time playing and looking at fairy-tale books, blue, red, and green.
Why, she did not even read them except by bits and snatches, but made up
tales to fit the pictures, and told over and over the stories that were
read to her.
She was always ready to drop a book for a romp with Pat Patterson.
Bounding about the deck together, they looked like a greyhound and a St.
Bernard--she slim and alert, he with his rough hair tumbling over his
merry, freckled face.
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