The clean, cool water and a change of dress restored her confidence. At least Aunt Sabrina had accepted her without a question—that ordeal was over. Everything would go easier now. As she opened the door there came up from below a tempting smell of hot food—Nancy suddenly remembered that she had not eaten a crumb since her hasty, early breakfast in Burlington.
The dining-room was as dim and cool as the rest of the house and as quiet. Miss Sabrina herself placed a steaming omelette at Nancy's place. Then she sat down stiffly at the other end of the table. The omelette was very good; Nancy relished, too, eating it from a plate of rare old blue and white china; her quick eyes took in with one appraising glance the beautiful lines of the old mohogany highboy and the spindle-legged chairs which one of the "forefathers" must have brought over from England, years and years ago.
"The meat pie was cold so B'lindy beat up an omelette," Miss Sabrina was saying. "I guess you must be hungry, Anne."
And then, because there had been the slightest tremble in the older woman's voice Nancy realized, in a flash, that Miss Sabrina was as nervous as she! Of course she had dreaded the coming of this strange grand-niece whom she had invited to Happy House merely from her sense of duty to Leavitt traditions. In her relief Nancy wanted more than anything to laugh loudly—instead she flashed a warm smile and said coaxingly:
"I wish you'd call me Nancy! Everyone does and it sounds—oh, jollier."
But Miss Sabrina's long face grew longer. She shook her head disapprovingly. "We've never called Anne Leavitts anything but Anne since the first one and I guess in every generation there's been one Anne Leavitt! My mother gave the name to an older sister who died when she was a baby. My own name is Sabrina Anne. Eat the strawberries! Jonathan says they're the last from the garden."
Rebuked Nancy bent her head over the fruit. "I am ashamed to know so little—of my family! You will forgive me, won't you, when I seem ignorant? I do want to learn." And she said this with all her heart, for unless she could either get Aunt Sabrina quickly away from the beloved subject of family or learn something about them, she was sure to make some dreadful blunder.
Making little patterns on the tablecloth with the end of one thin finger, Miss Sabrina cleared her throat twice, as though she wanted to say something and found it difficult to speak. Her eyes, as she levelled them upon Nancy, turned steely gray with cold little glints in their depths.
"As I wrote to you, I believe, I struggled—for a long time—with my conscience before I took the unwarranted step of inviting you to Happy House. Now I must make one command. Never, while you are here, are you to mention the name of your father or grandfather—and I likewise will refrain from so doing!" She stood up stiffly as she finished her singular words.
Nancy had lifted a round strawberry to her lips. She was so startled that the hand that guided it dropped suddenly and the berry rolled over the cloth, leaving a tiny red trail across the white surface.