"I may not," Nancy answered, rather coldly, "so your Miss Denny may have your Mr. Peter all to herself. And now something tells me it's time for fairies to be in bed! If you'll hand me my slippers I'll dance with you to the gate—only we must be very, very still or we'll waken B'lindy!"
From the gate of Happy House Nancy watched the child's figure disappear in the shadows of the road. In a very little while she would be crawling into her deserted bed, pulling the clothes up over her head and pretending that a mother's hand was caressing her to sleep and a voice that never "hollered" was whispering "goodnight."
"Blessed child," thought Nancy, "her fairy godmother has given her one gift that even Liz can't take away from her—imagination!"
CHAPTER XII
LIZ
Old Jonathan, returning from his daily trip to the postoffice, brought home the news that "there'd be doin's on Fourth of July 'count of the soldier boys—that Webb'd said it'd got to be a Fourth that not a child in Freedom'd forget!" And B'lindy had retorted that "it wa'nt likely, I guess, if Webb got up the doin's anyone would—they'd be doin's no one could forget!"
But Nancy's interest in the coming event gave way with a quickly smothered exclamation of delight when Jonathan drew from an inside pocket a square, bluish envelope with a foreign postmark, redirected in Mrs. Finnegan's most careful handwriting.
"And here's another," he added, bringing forth a letter from Claire.
"You're a dear," cried Nancy, hugging her treasures. "If you'll take this pan of peas, Jonathan, I'll run off and read them!"