"She says she will if she can stay long enough."
"She must stay." Miss Helen spoke with decision. "Did she mind very much, Nancy, that you met me?"
"Oh, no; she was glad. She said——" the girl hesitated.
"Go on, please." Miss Helen spoke pleadingly.
"She told me that she had said something that she regretted."
"And that was——" Miss Helen leaned forward eagerly and caught Nan's hand in a tight clasp.
"That she never wanted to see any of the Corner family again," here Nan hurried on. "It wasn't any wonder, was it, when she was in such trouble and distress?"
"I never blamed her," murmured her aunt.
"She said she ought to have tried to be friendly to you and"—Nan looked up shyly, "that you used to love me dearly."
"I've always loved you dearly," returned her aunt warmly, "and I hope I always shall. Ah, my dear, you don't know what it is to have those dreadful bitternesses come into a family. I loved you all, your father, your mother, you children, but I loved my mother, too, and she needed me, for I was all she had left, and—well, never mind now. I am so very glad time has softened your mother's feeling, toward me at least, and I am so sorry, so very sorry, that she is not well. Poor dear Jack, it would have been a blow to him."