“I know.” Nann looked wistfully toward the corner which Dories had indicated. “I don’t believe we will either of us know how to study alone.” Then, fearing that tears would come again, she caught her friend’s hand as she exclaimed, “Dories dear, this room is too full of ghosts of our past. Let’s go out in the garden. Dad had to go to the bank to finish up some business, and I had to stay here to see that the last load of furniture got off safely. It left just before you came. We’re going to store it for a time and live in a very fine hotel in Boston. Won’t that be a lark for a change?”
Dories spoke bitterly, “Well, for one thing I am thankful, and that is that your father didn’t lose his money the way my father did, though how it happened I never knew and mother never told me.”
“Maybe it will all come back some time in a manner just as mysterious,” her friend said cheerfully as she led her down the steps around the house. Neither of the girls spoke of Nann’s dear mother, who had so recently died, and whose passing had made life in the old house unendurable to the daughter and her father, but they were both thinking of her as they wandered into the garden which she had so loved. Nann slipped an arm about her friend as she paused to look at the blossoms.
“Autumn flowers are always so bright and cheerful, aren’t they, Dori?” She was determined to change the younger girl’s dismal trend of thought. “That bed of scarlet salvia over by the evergreen hedge seems to be just rejoicing about something, and the asters, of almost every color, look as though they were dressed for a party. They’re happy, if we aren’t.”
“Stupid things!” Dories said petulantly. “They don’t know or care because you, who have tended and watered and loved them, are going away forever and ever.”
“Yes, they do know,” Nann said, smiling a bit tremulously, “for last night when I came out to give them a drink, I told them all about it, but they’re just trying to make the best of it. They know it’s as hard for me to go away from my old home as it is for them to have me go, but they’re trying to make it easier for me, I guess.”
Dories flashed a quick glance up at her companion. Then, impulsively, “Oh, Nann, how selfish I always am! Of course it’s hard for you to leave your old home and go among strangers. Here all the time I’ve just been thinking how hard it is for me to have you go.” Then, making a little bow toward the bed of radiant asters, the girl of many moods called to them: “You’re setting a good example, you little plant folk in your bright blossom tams. From now on I’ll be just as cheerful as ever I can.” Smiling up at her companion, Dories exclaimed, “And all this time I’ve had some news that I haven’t told you.” Answering verbally her friend’s questioning look, she hurried on, “I’m going away myself for the month of October. At least I suppose I am, and that’s one of the things that has made me so dismally blue.” Nann stopped in the garden path which they had been slowly circling and gazed into the pretty face of her friend, hardly knowing whether to congratulate or condole. Instead of doing either, she queried, “But why are you so dismal about it, Dori? I’ve often heard you say that you did wish you could see something of the world beyond Elmwood?”
“I know it and I still should wish it if you were going with me, but this journey is anything but pleasant to anticipate.”
“Do tell me about it. I’m consumed with curiosity.” Nann drew her friend to a garden seat and sat with an arm holding her close. “Now start at the beginning. Who are you going with, where and why?” The question, simple as it seemed, brought tears with a rush to the violet-blue eyes of the younger girl, but remembering her recent resolve, she sat up ramrod-straight as she replied, making her mouth into as hard a line as she could. “The one I am going with is an old crab of a great-aunt whom I have never seen. I’m ever so sure she is a crab, although my angel mother always smooths over that part of her nature when she’s telling me about her. She’s rich as Crœsus, if that fabled person really was rich. I’m never very sure about those things.”
Nann laughed. “He was! You’re safe in your comparison. But he got much of his money by taking it away from other people with the cruel taxes he levied.”