"Come now, do you think it is right to give way to it like this? keeping apart from your fellow creatures, and fretting yourself to death?"
"I cannot help it."
"You could, if you tried."
"Oh, you don't know——" and Nancy caught her breath.
"Pardon me, I do know! Your chaperone told me all about it. I'm sure if your father could see you,—and we have no proof otherwise,—it would hurt him terribly to witness such hopeless, useless, misery."
"My father was the same himself," declared Nancy, "after my mother died, and I was sent to England."
"I know; your friend, Mrs. Sandilands, an exhaustive talker, assured me, he was so heart-broken, that he allowed his affairs to what is called 'go to the dogs.' Did he not regret that?"
"Yes, he did—but I have no affairs."
"You have your life to lead, my dear. Come, do not play the coward, but brace yourself for the race that is before you."
"Oh, I can't," she muttered; "if I could only die!"