Miss Stuart's visit was drawing to a close, and Nan was giving a luncheon in her honor. The little parlor of the parsonage was redolent with the fragrance of roses and mignonette, which were massed in every vase and bowl, and the arrangement of the simple, old-fashioned furniture bore evidence of Nan's artistic taste. A few good etchings and a half-dozen rare old prints adorned the walls, and scattered about on the low mantel were several valuable bits of vertu.
Nan stood in the center of the room, and received her guests with outstretched hand and beaming face.
"Now, I call this delightful," she said cheerily, as she shook hands with Miss Stuart. "Even father has gone away for the day, so we are a typical Hetherford party—all girls and no men. Em said you would be bored to death," she rattled on in a confidential undertone, "but for once in a way I thought you might find it amusing to have plenty of your own sex. It is no novelty to us, as Em will tell you with a face as long as the moral code."
"I think it is charming," Miss Stuart affirmed, with a greater regard for amiability than for truth.
Nan smiled mischievously.
"Indeed it is not, Miss Nan. The imp of dullness would never dare to show his surly face in your presence."
"Ah, you do not know," and Nan shook her head in laughing protest. "Drop in here any Sunday between church-time and dinner, and you will find us boon companions."
The door into the dining-room was opened, and a grim-visaged woman in a starched calico gown of uncompromising stiffness appeared on the threshold. For a moment she eyed Nan threateningly, and then announced:
"Your lunch is on the table," and added, as she faced about and marched back into the dining room, "and it's getting cold."