"Nance," I began.
"Go!... Did you hear me? I say, go!" she exclaimed, trembling, her cheeks becoming sickly white.
I went precipitately and as I hurried to town I gave myself such a lecture as a man ever got. Yet, in spite of my reproach for an unfortunate incident which happened very innocently, I could not keep from my mind that I was now very sure of another reason why I loved her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE DAY OF LOST CONFIDENCE
I shall not bore you with the details of my work in once more establishing confidence. And, at that, it was a sort of shaky, at-arms-length confidence. One morning, a few days after the episode of Middleton's brook, Nance came into my office, very properly and charmingly clad, and perched herself upon the top of her grandfather's writing-table. She was extremely saucy-looking, and inclined to be impudent. I came and stood by, looking down upon her. She was unusually pretty and tempting with an air of old-time daring in the tilt of her face.
At that moment I was sure I loved her for the three or four adorable little freckles upon her nose. The sight of these same scarcely perceptible beauty spots, which appeared regularly with the summer, carried me back to a day when I had made fun of the sun's tampering with her complexion. In those days she chose to sniffle very pityingly, yet becomingly, in the vain attempt to make me repentant. As she sat before me, instead of the handsome young woman she was, I saw an awkward girl of eleven or twelve with spindling legs that were rather uncertain in their movements; long thin arms with small bony hands, all attached to a shapeless little body, the only redeeming feature of which was a truly promising face and wonderfully beautiful hair as red as burnished brass. I remembered that, on many occasions, there was mud between the toes of her bare feet, for she always had possessed a boy's propensity for puddling. This brought to mind the wading I had seen earlier in the week, and I admit I blushed at the contrast presented to my mind.