“What questions, Nancy?”
“How is it that I can go to them if I like?”
“They are friends of your father’s.”
“And you are?”
“I am a friend of your mother’s.”
“But are they related to my father?”
“No; but Mr. Aspray once made your father a promise that if you were really in difficulties or thrown on the world he would adopt you, because your father had lent him a very considerable sum of money when he was in great difficulties. He could not pay back the money during your father’s life-time, so he gave him a letter instead, which your mother left with me. That letter promises to adopt you, if necessary. That, I understand, is the story. Mr. Aspray made the promise, and if you ask him you could claim it and go to him as his adopted daughter; but from the little I have heard of the family I do not think they would suit you.”
“But still,” said Nan, puckering her brows and looking very anxious, “I should have a sort of right there, should I not?”
“Nancy, my dear, have you no right here?”
“No, no, Mrs. Richmond,” said Nancy—“no right at all, because there is no money, and you have just taken me out of kindness.”