CHAPTER XXIX
THE KEY TO A HARD LOCK
The young people had planned to spend that next forenoon at a skating rink, where the ice was known to be good; but Nan ran away right after breakfast to meet her father's train, intending to join the crowd at the rink later.
"I'll take your skates for you, Nan," Walter assured her, as she set forth for the station.
"That's so kind of you, Walter," she replied gratefully.
"Say! I'd do a whole lot more for you than that," blurted out the boy, his face reddening.
"I think you have already," said Nan, sweetly, waving him good-bye from the taxi in which Mrs. Mason had insisted she should go to the station.
She settled back in her seat and thought happily for a few minutes. She had been so busy with all sorts of things here in Chicago—especially with what Bess Harley called "other people's worries"—that Nan had scarcely been able to think of her hopes for the future, or her memories of the past. She had been living very much in the present.
"Why," she thought, with something like a feeling of remorse, "I haven't even missed Beautiful Beulah. I—I wonder if I am really growing up? Oh, dear!"
Mr. Sherwood thought her a very much composed and sophisticated little body, indeed, when he met her on the great concourse of the railway station.