indignant ears the moment it ceased. It was her part in life to act
as a palliative: her mother, whose well-trained attitude toward the
ruling domestic male was of the early Victorian order, had lived and
died one. A nicer, warmer little woman had never existed. Joseph
Hutchinson had adored and depended on her as much as he had harried
her. When he had charged about like a mad bull because he could not
button his collar, or find the pipe he had mislaid in his own pocket,
she had never said more than "Now, Mr. Hutchinson," or done more than
leave her sewing to button the collar with soothing fingers, and
suggest quietly that sometimes he DID chance to carry his pipe about
with him. She was of the class which used to call its husband by a
respectful surname. When she died she left him as a sort of legacy to
her daughter, spending the last weeks of her life in explaining
affectionately all that "Father" needed to keep him quiet and make
him comfortable.

Little Ann had never forgotten a detail, and had even improved upon
some of them, as she happened to be cleverer than her mother, and had,
indeed, a far-seeing and clear young mind of her own. She had been
called "Little Ann" all her life. This had held in the first place
because her mother's name had been Ann also, and after her mother's
death the diminutive had not fallen away from her. People felt it
belonged to her not because she was especially little, though she was
a small, light person, but because there was an affectionate humor in
the sound of it.

Despite her hard needs, Mrs. Bowse would have faced the chance of
losing two boarders rather than have kept Mr. Joseph Hutchinson but
for Little Ann. As it was, she kept them both, and in the course of
three months the girl was Little Ann to almost every one in the house.