Mrs. Corner spoke next. “Yes, I remember now that my first hero was Gilliatt in Victor Hugo’s ‘Toilers of the Sea,’ and, strange to say, by some peculiar method of sequence I can’t account for, my next was the young assistant at our church. I used to wrap myself in a big shawl on cold days, and sit at our attic window to see him go by, and if he passed me on the street, that was a red-letter day.”
“And yet no one knew of this.”
“Not a soul. Half the pleasure was in the mysterious secrecy.”
“Just what I said. My first craze was for the organist. I recall that he had Hyacinthine curls and wore a cloak. I used to steal into church when he was practicing and sit there lost in a rhapsody, then I would slip out when he had stopped playing, and would wait at the gate to see him come from the church. I thought him the most wonderful being in the world. I couldn’t have been more than sixteen.”
There was a little duet of laughter.
“Before that,” Miss Helen continued, “I was in love with my Sunday-school teacher. She was a heavenly goddess to me, and I envied the very glove she wore because it touched her hand.”
“And I felt the same way about one of the older girls at school.” Mrs. Corner gave her experience. “What dainties I saved for her. What gifts I hoarded to bestow upon her, and how unhappy I was when she wouldn’t let me walk home with her. Her name, if I remember correctly, was Samantha Farley, and she had red curly hair.”
Another little tinkle of laughter came to Nan’s ears.
“So, you see,” Miss Helen took up the conversation again, “our dear little Nan’s is no unusual case. She will recover and, I hope, will marry some good man when she is old enough.”
“As I did,” said Mrs. Comer.