Nancy first and last

by Amy Ella Blanchard

"Oh, but Granny, I like orange marmalade so much better to my breakfast."

"Then you can buy it. I shall not," replied her grandmother, lifting her eyebrows and half shutting her eyes, but smiling at the same time. "I'll get even with you yet, Ernest Kirkby," she cried. "See if I don't. Not going, are you?"

"I must be getting on. Dear woman, I am afraid to stay. This is my hour of triumph and I don't want to lose its glow by tarrying too long, besides I promised to spend the night in Chichester with a friend. I shall see you very soon again, all of you."

Mrs. Manning looked after him as he went off briskly down the street. "There goes one of the best men that ever lived," she commented. "I never could see what you were thinking of, Katharine, to throw him over for that poor visionary."

"I suppose it was for the same reason that you threw over 'Squire Topham for Uncle Manning," returned Mrs. Beltrán, having learned from Mr. Kirkby the best kind of weapons to use in her controversies with her aunt.

"Humph!" Aunt Manning ejaculated, but did not pursue the subject. It was a matter of family history that Aunt Manning might have married an heir to nobility, but that she had preferred another and poorer man. She had been a widow for many years. Her only son had gone into the army, had married in India, and at the death of his wife had sent his baby girl home to his mother in England. His death, a few years later, left Lillian with no one but her grandmother to look to, and the two, who understood one another, were devoted.

The two girls were hardly in before they were out again, for Lillian would show Anita the harbor when the tide was up and the fishing boats sitting gallantly upon the shining water. The dogs, too, were begging for a walk and being persons of importance must be indulged. Haddie trotted along daintily, avoiding mud as a gentleman should, but Tommy was into everything, and Lillian, who read into her pets certain peculiarities, entertained Anita by describing them. She maintained that Hotspur could sing, though he had no ear for music and always was off the key. Tommy, since associating with Haddie, tried hard not to drop his H's, but always forgot when he was excited. Moreover, he lisped a little. She talked so seriously about these characteristics, that Anita came to believe they really possessed them, and found them vastly amusing.

On the way down the street they met a well set-up young man, with a fine, straightforward manner and a clear blue eye. He was presented as Bertie Sargent. "We are old playfellows," said Lillian to her cousin. "It was Bertie who gave me Tommy."

"Oh, was it?" Anita wondered if this were why Tommy appeared to be the favorite.

The three walked down to the harbor, coming upon an artist hard at work trying to catch the reflections in the water before the light should fade. Bertie flung him some chaffing remark which he answered in kind, and presently began packing up his sketching kit, calling to them to wait for him. "The light has gone," he said, "and there's no use keeping on."