As the days flew on she grew busier and busier, for on the following Monday she went to school with Nora and Kitty. It was discovered at school that she was a very clever and well-informed little girl for her age, and she was put into quite a high-up class for a girl of eleven, and had many lessons to learn, and much to attend to. And as Nan had not only school-hours to live through, but private lessons in music to work for at home, and walks to take, and romps to enjoy, and the animals one and all to idolise, she had not been a month in Mrs. Richmond’s house before she became a very merry and a very happy little girl. Not that for a single moment she forgot her mother; but she was wise enough and sensible enough to know that if she would really please that mother she would do it best by being happy and contented. Once she saw Mr. Pryor; and when Mr. Pryor said to her, “Are you trying to be the best girl?” Nan coloured, and squeezed his hand, and said:
“Oh! but I have got such a darling little puppy—all my very, very own—and his name is Jack. And I do love Kitty and Nora! And Mrs. Richmond is very kind.”
Then Mr. Pryor looked straight into the dancing, dark eyes of Nan, and he laid his hand for a moment on her head and said:
“I think you are going to be the best girl.”
“I wonder what he really means,” thought Nan. “It is nice to be happy; even in mother’s time I was never as happy as I am now. In mother’s time there was always the pain—her pain—to remember, and the empty purse, and Mrs. Vincent, who was so cross, and—— Oh! lots and lots of such things. But now nothing seems sad, and no one seems sorry; and the animals alone would make any girl happy.”
But as it is not appointed in this life for any one to pass from the cradle to the grave without anxiety and troubles and temptations and fears, so was Nan Esterleigh no exception to the general rule.
She had been two months at Mrs. Richmond’s, and in that time had grown strong and healthy, and a pretty rose colour had beautified her dark little face, and her eyes were very bright, and her whole appearance that of an intelligent and happy child. During those two months the spring had advanced so far that it was now the daffodil and primrose time, and the children had arranged to go to the nearest woods to gather baskets of primroses on a certain Saturday, which was of course a whole holiday. Saturday was the most delightful day of the seven in Nan’s opinion, for there was no school and there were no classes of any sort. It was the animals’ special day, when extra cleanings had to be given and extra groomings gone through; when the cages and baskets had to get fresh flannels and fresh gravel; when the mice and the rats had in especial to be looked after. Nan always enjoyed Saturday best of all, and this special Saturday was to be indeed a red-letter day, for Miss Roy had decided to take the children to the country by a train which left Victoria at one o’clock. They would get to Shirley Woods in half-an-hour; there they could pick primroses to their hearts’ content, and bring them back in basketfuls. Nan was very much excited. She had never been to Shirley Woods, and the thought of some hours in the country filled her with the wildest glee.
“Why, you dance about and make more fuss even than we do,” said Nora, looking at her as she skipped up and down the room.
“Yes; I am in very high spirits,” said Nan, “and I am ever so happy.”
“I wonder how you will enjoy it when our cousin Augusta comes.”