Bridget had not yet come home, and she could not endure to stay alone any longer, so she wrapped a little parcel and started over to Constance's. The parcel was one of a set of articles she was learning to make. Some weeks before this she had appeared at Constance's one day, and unrolling a large bundle she carried, had spread upon the latter's bed a quantity of tiny clothing, cut and made in most original fashion.
“Why, Nannie!” exclaimed Constance, who had no other idea than that they were meant for little baby Chance. “How lovely of you! Thank you ever so much!”
“They're not for you,” said Nannie in her crude way. “They're mine.”
The chagrin and embarrassment Constance might have felt over her mistake was swallowed up now in her amazement and delight.
“Yours! Oh, Nannie, I'm so glad.”
“I haven't any use for them,” said Nannie, bluntly, “but”—and here there was a hardly perceptible quiver of her lips—“I just wanted them around.”
“I declare, that's really pathetic,” said Randolph afterward when Constance told him. “Why don't you teach her, sweetheart—teach her to make the pretty little things?”
And Constance did, and as a result of all the ripping and cutting over Nannie had made some exquisite little garments, two of which she presented to Constance, and the rest kept in a little chiffonier in her room, to gaze at and kiss many times a day.
Returning from her sewing lesson rather earlier than usual, for she longed and dreaded to go back to her house, she found Steve awaiting her.
He was sitting in the little parlor, and his face was flushed and his eyes strangely bright.