"You ought to be with your own people, of course, and I am
your near kinswoman. Your great-grandmother and my grandmother were
sisters. It is little that I have, but that little I shall gladly share
with you. I must take you with me when I go home next week."
"Where is your home?" asked Anne.
"In Washington City. I am one of the little army of government clerks,"
Miss Dorcas explained. "I come back every summer to spend my vacation
here. I walk in the dear old garden and read the dear old books and live
again in the dear old days. You do not understand now, child; but some
day, if you live long enough, you will understand."
Lizzie wailed aloud when she learned that Anne was to leave 'Lewis
Hall,' and in her heart Anne preferred her old home to her old cousin.
"You shouldn't never have gone to a 'sylum," said Mrs. Collins, wiping
her eyes with her apron. "But when one of your blood-kin lays claim to
you, that's diff'rent and I ain't got no call to interfere. I got sense
enough to know my folks ain't like yo' folks. Yours is the real old-time
quality folks and you ought to be brung up with your own kind. Now, we
is a bottom rail that's done come to the top.
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