“Not a scrap,” answered Nancy.
“You promise that you will not tell?”
“Oh, I suppose it is frightfully wrong—I am almost sure it is frightfully wrong—but you do tempt me; and if what you say is quite true—I mean about the vaccination—perhaps it would do no good to tell.”
“But I’ll tell you what you can do. Now that Miss Roy knows about Connie, you can put it into her head to have the rest of you vaccinated. Oh, my dear Nancy, I feel quite happy at last.”
So Nancy yielded. She was sorry enough afterwards, but she yielded, being compelled by Augusta’s entreaties, by the look in her eyes, and the tempting bait she held up for her acceptance.
That night Nancy was in possession of some important pieces of information. She knew exactly the position she held with regard to the Asprays. She could claim the Asprays’ house as her home by right at any moment. She could leave Mrs. Richmond, and go to Mr. Aspray and say, “You owed my father money, and now I have come to you, and you are bound by your own solemn promise to my father to take me and provide for me. This is my right, and I owe nothing to you, because my father helped you with a large sum of money.”
This was the news that Nancy was told by Augusta, but she took good care not to enlighten the little girl as to how she came by the information, Nancy listened with flushed cheeks and shining eyes; and presently, tired out, she went away to bed.
“I suppose I ought to be glad,” she thought as she laid her head on her pillow; “but I am not glad, for I can never consider the Asprays’ house my own. And, yes—oh yes—I would rather be Mrs. Richmond’s little charity-girl than be the grandest girl in the world as Mr. Aspray’s adopted daughter.”
This news kept her from thinking so much about the smallpox, and about the danger which Augusta had run.
“Nan,” said Kitty as she tumbled into bed, “how hot your face is! You tire yourself over Gussie.”