“Oh, don’t, Nancy! I ought not to speak to you at all.”
“So I’ve been told by the sweet soul herself,” responded Nancy. “She wrote me a letter which would have put another girl in such a rage that she would never have touched any one of you again with a pair of tongs. But that’s not Nancy King. For when Nancy loves a person, she loves that person through thick and thin, through weal and woe. I came to-day to try to find one of you dear girls. I have found you. What is the matter with you, Paulie? You do look bad.”
“I’m very unhappy,” said Pauline. “Oh Nancy! we sort of promised that we wouldn’t have anything more to do with you.”
“But you can’t keep your promise, can you, darling? So don’t say any more about it. Anyhow, promise or not, I’m going to kiss you now.”
Nancy flung her arms tightly round Pauline’s neck and printed several loud, resounding kisses on each cheek; then she seated herself under an oak tree, and motioned to Pauline to do likewise.
Pauline hesitated just for a moment; then scruples were forgotten, and she sat on the ground close to Nancy’s side.
“Tell me all about it,” said Nancy. “Wipe your eyes and talk. Don’t be frightened; it’s only poor old Nancy, the girl you have known since you were that high. And I’m rich, Paulie pet, and although we’re only farmer-folk, we live in a much finer house than The Dales. And I’m going to have a pony soon—a pony of my very own—and my habit is being made for me at Southampton. I intend to follow the hounds next winter. Think of that, little Paulie. You’ll see me as I ride past. I’m supposed to have a very good figure, and I shall look ripping in my habit. Well, but that’s not to the point, is it? You are in trouble, you poor little dear, and your old Nancy must try and make matters better for you. I love you, little Paulie. I’m fond of you all, but you are my special favorite. You were always considered something like me—dark and dour when you liked, but sunshiny when you liked also. Now, what is it, Paulie? Tell your own Nancy.”
“I’m very fond of you, Nancy,” replied Pauline. “And I think,” she continued, “that it is perfectly horrid of Aunt Sophia to say that we are not to know you.”
“It’s snobbish and mean and unlady-like,” retorted Nancy; “but her saying it doesn’t make it a fact, for you do know me, and you will always have to know me. And if she thinks, old spiteful! that I’m going to put up with her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she’s fine and mistaken. I’m not, and that’s flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn’t mind telling her so to her face.”
“But, on the whole, she has been kind to us,” said Pauline, who had some sense of justice in her composition, angry as she felt at the moment.