"My mother is always hinting at my changed looks, but indeed I try
to be as usual. If I behave so badly, I must keep away." But this
threat so alarmed Anna that he took back his words.
"He is very unhappy--I think he gets more so," Anna thought, as she
stood by her window that night; "and of course it is Elizabeth who
makes him so." And that night Anna again wept and prayed for
Malcolm--her dearest brother, as she called him--for deep down in
her girlish heart there was buried the pure virginal love that she
had unconsciously given him--a love that no touch or breath would
ever wake into life now.
Malcolm was very repentant for days over his unkind speech, and on
Christmas Eve, when he paid his next visit, he brought Anna a peace-
offering in the shape of a valuable proof engraving of a picture she
had long coveted. Malcolm had had it beautifully framed. Anna was
enchanted with the gift, but Mrs. Herrick privately called her son
to account for his extravagance.
"There was no need to make Anna such an expensive present," she said
seriously. "You must have paid twenty guineas for that engraving.
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