"Won't you mind Nancy being seen along of me now?" she demanded.
Susan was rather perplexed. Certain other changes would be needed beside the possession of a neat head, if Bess Gardiner was to be counted a fit companion for Nancy Dunn; yet she could not bear to check the poor ignorant girl in her first effort to take a right turn.
"What makes you want that so much?" she inquired.
"Because—" Bess' voice suddenly faltered. "Because there ain't nobody like her—and I—I—I'd do anything in all the world that ever I could for her—I would!"
Mother and daughter exchanged looks, tears in Nancy's eyes, and something very like tears in Susan's.
"If Nannie's to be the one who can help you to what's right, I'm not the woman to hinder," she said, with a touch of huskiness. "Seems to me it may be God's will for you both. But look here, Bess. You've got to make your choice. You can't do both, you know. If you want to be in and out here, and to learn from my Nannie, you'll have to leave your bad companions, and drop your old ways. There's to be no bad words spoken, and no taking of God's Holy Name in vain, and no saying of things which a pure-minded girl shouldn't hear. And you'll have to stop going about in that sort of dress I saw you in last Sunday. I wouldn't have my Nannie seen in the street with a girl dressed like that—no, not for anything you could mention. I'm not speaking unkindly; but I do mean what I say. You've had your old friends, and you've gone on in their ways. If Nannie's to be your friend now, you'll have to take to new ways."
Bess's low brow was frowning anxiously.
"I'd do anything," she said; "anything you'll tell me. And I mean it. I told mother I'd go right off and board with them Joneses, because father did storm at me so. And I won't now."
"No," Susan said, in decisive tones. "It's the Joneses or Nancy. Not both."
Bess shook her head.