When the last caller had departed, Theodore stood up and held out a little purse to Nan.
"Ain't much in it, but I want ye to use it for anything he wants," the boy said, with a gesture toward the child.
Nan hesitated. She would not have taken it for herself, but she knew that it would hurt Theo sadly, if she refused his gift, so she took it, saying, "You've been so good to him always, Theo. I shan't let him forget you ever."
"No--don't," muttered the boy, and unable to trust himself to say more, he turned away in silence, and went to his own room. The little purse he had given Nan contained five dollars.
"The dear boy! How good he is to us," Nan murmured, as she put the bill back into it, "but I hope I shall not need to use this."
Theodore ran in the next morning for a hasty good-bye before he went out to his work. He had waited purposely until the last moment, so that his leave-taking might be a brief one, and he said so little, and said that little so coldly that a stranger might have thought him careless and indifferent, but Nan knew better. Now that the time of departure was so close at hand, she shrank nervously from it and almost wished she had refused to go, but still she dressed Little Brother and herself in good season, and was all ready when at nine thirty, promptly, Mrs. Rawson appeared. The lady gave a satisfied glance at the two, and then insisted upon carrying the baby downstairs herself, while one of the Hunt children followed with Nan's valise. A cab was waiting at the door, and cabs being rarities in that locality, a crowd of curious children stood gaping at it, and waiting to see Nan and the baby depart in it.
"It is going to be a warm day. I shall be glad when we are fairly off," Mrs. Rawson said, with an anxious glance at the baby's face, as the cab rattled over the rough stones.
As the little party entered the station, there was a flutter of light raiment and bright ribbons, and Nan found herself fairly surrounded by the eleven King's Daughters. They took possession of the baby, who brightened up wonderfully at the sight of them, and they seized the valise and Mrs. Rawson's handbag, and they trooped altogether through the great station to the waiting train, and instead of saying, "Can't go through yet, ladies--not till the train's made up," the gatekeeper smiled in genial fashion into their bright faces and promptly unlocked the gate for them. That was because one of them was the daughter of a railroad official, but Nan didn't know that.
The train was not all ready, but two of the parlor cars were there, and into one of these the girls climbed, and then they found the seats belonging to Mrs. Rawson and Nan, and put the extra wraps up in the rack for them and pushed up the window, and did everything else that they could think of for the comfort of the travellers.
Then one of them pinned a great bunch of deliciously fragrant violets to Nan's dress, and another fastened a tiny silver cross above the violets, as she whispered,