"You haven't any queer wild plan in your head to go away, have you?"
"I don't know—sometimes I think I have. I dare say there are things somewhere a girl could find to do."
"But Mrs. Frost—?"
"Oh, Mother would not miss me long—she'd have Dan."
"But Dan would miss you."
"Yes, Dan might. I couldn't go, if Dan really needed me here. I think sometimes he doesn't. But, Tom, if you were in my position, if you didn't know who your parents were, if all your life you had been living on the charity of others—good and kind as they are, wonderful even as Dan has always been—you couldn't be happy. I'm not happy."
"But, Nance, what has come over you?"
"No—nothing in particular; I have often felt this way."
"But, dear, I couldn't let you go. I'd mind a lot, Nance."
She looked at him with a sudden smile of incredulity. "You, Tommy?"