It was one lovely day in June that Nan hied her to Place o' Pines. She gazed with a half smile at the old log of wood on which the music rack was still fastened. No need now to pretend a piano she remembered with pride and pleasure. She began softly to sing the old tune but this time Little Jamie was not the refrain, but that other one: Dearest Mother.
"The very nicest thing in all the world is a mother," she said to herself. "I believe just as Dr. Woods said to Aunt Helen the other day; she made me say it over so I wouldn't forget it: 'The Being who could conceive and create a good mother must Himself be perfect love.'"
"Nan, Nan," came the voice of some one calling from afar.
Nan started up and listened, then she crept out of the opening in the pines and ran around to the fence, giving the peculiar call which the Corner children always used in answering one another. "Where are you?" Mary Lee's voice came nearer. There was an excited and triumphant ring in it. Evidently, she had something important to tell.
"Here I am," said Nan, squeezing herself through the fence and meeting her sister on the other side. "What do you want me for, Mary Lee?"
"You ought just to hear what mother and Aunt Helen and Aunt Sarah have been talking about; the most exciting things. Come over here and I'll tell you." Mary Lee spoke importantly. It was generally Nan who was the dispenser of news, and Mary Lee seldom had the chance of taking the role of herald, in consequence she carried herself with the little air of superiority which Nan generally assumed upon such occasions.
Nan followed her to a patch of grass by the side of the fence, and they sat down together. This summer the two were more frequently companions, for Phil had suddenly discovered a preference for the company of boys, and was generally with Ashby and Ran pursuing more masculine sports than Mary Lee cared to join.
"We're not likely to be here six months from now," Mary Lee began with a view to making a sensation.
"What do you mean?" said Nan, startled out of a pretended indifference.