“And I had such a good time—”
“Whoa there! No, you don’t, Antoinette Brandon,” Ruth warned Nancy. “You are not going in the real-estate business, so you needn’t get all set for it. My father has a family to feed—”
But the very gentleman spoken of was at that moment hurrying across the platform, to meet the two uproarious girls.
He was most anxious to know about their mission. Mrs. Cullen, it appeared, was a very important personage, and he regretted genuinely the absence from his office of a suitable escort for the lady.
“Oh, you needn’t worry, Daddy,” Ruth assured him, taking the city newspaper from one of his pockets and feeling for candy in the other. “Nancy took such good care of her that she almost stayed over to buy more houses. You’ll have to look out for Nancy, Dad.” Ruth continued to joke. “She’s an expert business man, you know, and might take a notion to try real-estate.”
“The more the merrier,” replied the genial gentleman, who, like Ruth, had great gray eyes and a clear florid complexion, “I’ve been wanting to see your mother, Nancy,” he said next. “Maybe, I could suit her better in a house than you are being suited in the Townsend place,” he ventured.
“Oh, we love it over there,” Nancy hurried to state. “And besides, Mr. Ashley, we’re just poor folks,” she added laughingly.
“So are we all of us,” joined in Mr. Ashley. “But I supposed, now that Sanders has struck his gold mine, he might want to buy the little place himself, sort of souvenir, you know.” As they talked, they were walking back to the waiting taxi, in which the girls had fetched Mrs. Cullen to the station.
“Now Daddy,” objected Ruth, “we’ve had enough business for one afternoon. Nancy must get back home and I’ve got a music lesson, if Miss Dudley has waited for me, and I hope she hasn’t.”
Nancy felt rather important stepping out of the taxi at her door, it seemed, somehow, much more business-like than just riding in someone’s private car, and she dashed up the store steps, still thrilled with enthusiasm from her experience.