The proposition met with little enthusiasm on Nance's part. It was Mrs. Purdy who had got Dan into the church and persuaded him not to go to the theater or learn how to dance. It was Mrs. Purdy who took him home with her to dinner every Sunday after church and absorbed the time that used to be hers. But the need for a job was too pressing for Nance to harbor prejudices. Instead of sewing for the Lavinskis that night, she sewed for herself, trying to achieve a costume from the old finery bequeathed her by Birdie Smelts.
You would scarcely have recognized Dan that next Sunday in his best suit, with his hair plastered down, and a very red tie encircling a very high collar. To be sure Dan's best was over a year old, and the brown-striped shirt-front was not what it seemed, but his skin was clean and clear, and there was a look in his earnest eyes that bespoke an untroubled conscience.
Mrs. Purdy received them in her cozy fire-lit sitting-room and made Nance sit beside her on the sofa, while she held her hand and looked with mild surprise at her flaring hat and cheap lace collar.
"Dan didn't tell me," she said, "how big you had grown or—or how pretty."
Nance blushed and smiled and glanced consciously at Dan. She had felt dubious about her costume, but now that she was reassured, she began to imitate Birdie's tone and manner as she explained to Mrs. Purdy the object of her visit.
"Deary me!" said Mrs. Purdy, "Dan's quite right. We can't allow a nice little girl like you to work in a glass factory! We must find some nice genteel place for you. Let me see."
In order to see Mrs. Purdy shut her eyes, and the next moment she opened them and announced that she had the very thing.
"It's Cousin Lucretia Bobinet!" she beamed. "She is looking for a companion."
"What's that?" asked Nance.
"Some one to wait on her and read to her and amuse her. She's quite advanced in years and deaf and, I'm afraid, just a little peculiar."