“Oh, yes, I should be reel tickled to go again, but I ain’t got nobody to go with, and, well—there’s other reasons besides.”
“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
Nannie blushed to think how inconsiderate she had been to force her old friend to allude, even indirectly, to her poverty, and she walked up the dusty road to her own gate, filled with compunction. Just outside the gate was a little wilderness of goldenrod and asters. She thought what a pity it was they should get so gray with dust. Poor things, they could not help it; they had to stay where chance had planted them unless somebody picked them and carried them away, and even then they left their roots behind them. Somehow they made her think of Miss Becky, living her little narrow, stationary life all alone in the old tumble-down farmhouse. And just at this point in her reflections a delightful scheme came into her head.
Now, Nannie was the recipient of a slender monthly allowance intended for gloves and ruchings, postage stamps, and the like, and, having spent the last four months far from the allurements of city shops, she happened at this juncture to be in funds. Her stock of gloves, to be sure, was pretty well exhausted, and Christmas was only a few months away. But Miss Becky was nearer still, and Nannie had no hesitation between the 203 two claims. As a natural consequence it happened that, one pleasant day early in October, Miss Becky, in her best black bonnet, found herself steaming up to Boston, about to do Nannie “a real favour” by chaperoning her to the theatre. Miss Becky was so much impressed by the gravity of her responsibility that she hardly took in the fact that she was going to the theatre herself!
They were to see The Shaughraun—a play which her best friend had assured Nannie was “just great”; and as the train rushed up to town the young hostess was at a loss to decide whether she was happier on her own account or on Miss Becky’s. To be sure, she was just a little disappointed about Miss Becky, who seemed curiously silent and stiff; and when they came out of the station and walked up the crowded city street, the old lady held her by the sleeve and looked bewildered and frightened.
“How long is it since you’ve been in Boston?” Nannie asked, looking up into the anxious old face framed in the black 204 silk bonnet which looked twice as old-fashioned as ever before.
“Not sence Sophia was married ’n’ we came up to select her weddin’ gownd. I was quite a girl then, an’ I guess I felt more at home in a crowd than I do now. We don’t often hev much of a crowd out our way.”