And that the good woman had done her best to make a nest for her little niece in the ugly house, Nan was assured. After dinner she insisted upon the girl's going to the east room to change her dress and lie down. The comparison between this great chamber and Nan's pretty room at home was appalling.
The room had been plastered, but the plaster was of a gray color and unfinished. The woodwork was painted a dusty, brick red with mineral paint. The odd and ugly pieces of furniture horrified Nan. The drugget on the floor only served to hide a part of the still more atrociously patterned carpet. The rocking chair complained if one touched it. The top of the huge maple dresser was as bald as one's palm.
Nan sat down on the unopened trunk when her aunt had left her. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. Home certainly was never like this! She did not see how she was ever going to be able to stand it.
Chapter XIII. MARGARET LLEWELLEN
“If Momsey or Papa Sherwood knew about this they'd be awfully sorry for me,” thought Nan, still sitting on the trunk. “Such a looking place! Nothing to see but snow and trees,” for the village of Pine Camp was quite surrounded by the forest and all the visitor could see from the windows of her first-floor bedroom were stumps and trees, with deep snow everywhere.
There was a glowing wood stove in the room and a big, chintz-covered box beside it, full of “chunks.” It was warm in the room, the atmosphere being permeated with the sweet tang of wood smoke.
Nan dried her eyes. There really was not any use in crying. Momsey and Papa Sherwood could not know how bad she felt, and she really was not selfish enough to wish them to know.
“Now, Nanny Sherwood!” she scolded herself, “there's not a particle of use of your sniveling. It won't 'get you anywhere,' as Mrs. Joyce says. You'll only make your eyes red, and the folks will see that you're not happy here, and they will be hurt.
“Mustn't make other folks feel bad just because I feel bad myself,” Nan decided. “Come on! Pluck up your courage!