“But, Nannie, child, you have talked of that saddle for months. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Oh! yes,” she cried, rapturously with a childish clap of her hands; “I’d love to do it more than anything. Can you see about it to-day?” Her soft brown eyes were not brimming now, but full of eagerness.
“I am almost afraid,” said the Colonel, shaking his head, “that your mother will not consent and that the girls might refuse to let you do it if they knew.”
“Oh, they must not know,” said Nannie with an air of importance borne of the project in hand. “No one must know, not even mummie; it is a secret between you and me. We will send an anonymous letter the way they do in books. Oh! won’t it be fun?”
“Who ever would have suspected we had an arch-conspirator in our midst,” said the Colonel slyly, “and that she would victimize an old man like me?” In his heart he was rejoicing over her pretty exhibition of girlish love and unselfishness. Then more seriously, he added: “I am afraid we shall have to wait until your birthday really comes round, Puss. I have not the money just now.”
“But you are going to let me do it, aren’t you? No matter if we do have to wait, come and begin the letter now. We must make it very mysterious, and manage to get it to them somehow so they will never suspect. How do you suppose we can?” She looked at him, confident that he would suggest something.
And he did. But what he said was whispered so low that even we cannot hear. The effect on her was instantaneous, and caused her to dance about delightedly. Then suddenly remembering that her mother was sleeping in an adjacent room, she became subdued and catching her father by the arm drew him quietly into the house.
CHAPTER V
It is not until a great crisis is past that one comprehends with any clearness of vision the multitudinous events that whirl about the one supreme fact. Stunned by the first shock, one wakes to learn that close on the heels of disaster come the consequences—pell-mell, helter-skelter, pushing, crowding with a grim insistence from which there is no escape. It was small wonder, then, that to the Dale girls the world seemed topsy-turvy.
A change being inevitable, their one desire was to get it over quickly, the first of October, therefore, saw them moved into new quarters. The arrangements had been made by Dr. Ware, who effected a compromise with the girls—he offering them a vacant apartment in a house he owned, they gladly accepting this home if he would allow them to pay rent when they became successful wage-earners. The good Doctor sighed and consented; he recognized there was no thwarting their earnest purpose. In the first discussion of plans, he had suggested a little house in the suburbs; but Hester, with her practical nature fast developing, had said that to do business they must be within reach of people—in the midst of things. She did not quite know how she knew this—perhaps it was more that she felt it instinctively; but it met with Dr. Ware’s approval and had great weight with Julie, who secretly longed for the country, but put aside all personal inclination and voted with her sister. The result was a flat in a quiet, unpretentious neighborhood, which yet took on a semblance of gentility from its proximity to Crana Street.