“Oh, Mr. Avery, I didn’t know you at first. Come right in and sit down. Nanette has gone over to the store for me. She’ll be back right away.”
The old man moved cautiously through the narrow doorway, to the sewing-room of the shop, allowing generous margins as he passed tables and chairs, for his natural respect for “wimmen-folks” was augmented to a nervous self-consciousness, surrounded as he was by so many outward and visible signs of femininity in various stages of completion.
“You just make yourself to home. Take off your coat and scarf. Here,”—she pushed a big rocking-chair toward him,—“draw right up to the stove and get warm.”
“Thanks, Miss Wilkins, but I be tol’able warm. You said Swickey was comin’ right back?”
“Yes; she just went over to the dry-goods store for me. You’ll be surprised to see how much Nanette has grown.”
“Do all the folks call her Nanette now?” asked Avery.
“I think so. You see ‘Nanette’ is so much prettier than ‘Swickey.’ I have always called her Nanette. She is getting used to it, and so are her friends. Of course; Jessie Cameron—” Miss Wilkins hesitated.
“Yes, of course. Thet’s diff’runt. Jessie knowed her when she was Swickey and nothin’ else.”
Avery rocked slowly, working the chair away from the stove by gradations. Despite his long, cold ride from the Knoll, little beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. Anticipation and Miss Wilkins kept him warm.
“Nanette is doing well at school,” said the little dressmaker, as she snipped busily with her scissors. “She is naturally bright. All she needed was other young girls about her as an incentive to study.”