"No, I think I am glad, Nannie."
"Then I am glad, but why didn't she come to see you when she was so near? Did she say mean horrid things, too? I can't imagine her doing anything hateful and mean."
A pained expression passed over Mrs. Corner's face. "What do you know about that sad time, Nannie? I have never mentioned it to you children."
"No, but Unc' Landy told me grandmother said bitter things. I know you didn't though."
Mrs. Corner sighed. "I said one thing, Nannie, that I have often regretted since, and it is because of it that your Aunt Helen did not let me know of her being here. It was in a moment of deep distress. I was hurt, indignant. I felt that I had been left desolate with insufficient means to support my children, and in the only interview I had with your grandmother I said, 'I hope I shall never again behold the face of one of the Corner family except the children of my beloved husband who bear his name.'"
"I don't blame you," said Nan, taking her mother's hand between her own. "They were horribly mean to go off with their money and not give you a penny. They ought at least to have let you live in the big house and use the piano."
Her mother smiled. "That is the way you look at it. Well, we get along somehow without them, thanks to Aunt Sarah. I am sorry I did not try to be more friendly to Helen. She was dominated by her mother and it was no doubt a choice between her and you children. She was very fond of you as a baby and she has not forgotten. Her mother's sadly jealous and envious spirit is what has made all the trouble."
"I was four years old when they went away," said Nan. "I don't remember them at all, though I remember dear daddy perfectly."
"Let's not talk of it any more," said Mrs. Corner.