'We are to make it a regular thing,' Nancy explained, 'and who knows, Ally, but that it may become one of the classic correspondences in our language? We are to have borrowed names chosen by him. How I love this fancy of Arcadian names in such a commerce; it gives the last delightful touch of romance. He is to be "Sylvander," and I "Clarinda." Now is not "Clarinda" a pretty name, Ally? Heard you ever a sweeter or a more musical?'
''Tis very pretty, indeed,' said Alison, good-naturedly. Secretly she thought it an outlandish appellation. 'I think "Nancy's" quite as pretty,' she added, truthfully; 'though, to be sure, a stranger could not call you so at once.'
'Why, that's just it!' cried Nancy. 'Don't you see how we avoid vulgar familiarity on one hand, and chilling formality on the other? 'Tis the most perfect idea. I am in love with it, Ally!'
Alison smiled benignly on her little friend, quite unaware that the cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, had appeared on their horizon, the cloud that would some day cover the sky.
CHAPTER XVII.
One day, about this time, our heroine received a great surprise, not to say a violent shock, in a letter from her father. She came running in with it to Nancy, who had not risen, with a very white face.
'Lud, child!' cried her friend, looking up from the composition of a morning poem, 'what is it?'
'My sister Kate is to have Mr. Cheape!' gasped Alison. Nancy burst out laughing.
'Well, love,' she said, 'what did I tell you? And why pull such a long lugubrious face over it? Could any arrangement more altogether natural be imagined? There is another of you disposed of, your mother pleased, and Mr. Cheape fitted with a wife at last.'
'Oh, how could she do it?' wailed Alison, alluding to her less-fastidious sister. 'Kate, too, the bonniest of us all!'