“I want to say, dear, while I have a chance, that Jim has told me all about you; and I can quite understand why he has so completely lost his head, as well as his heart.”
“You are very kind,” murmured Nancy.
“I also want to commend you, my dear, on your very excellent sense. Now! That sounds funny, doesn’t it? As if I meant in choosing my Jim. But really, I mean your decision to wait a year to see how your sudden friendship wears.”
“It was the only sensible thing to do, I thought,” said Nancy.
“And you were quite right. You and Jim need to get better acquainted before choosing a life together. Naturally too, his father and I want to know you real well, if you will let us.”
“I’ll be glad to.”
“Then too, your parents will want to get acquainted with my boy. It is a pity we live so far apart; but there are ways of surmounting that difficulty, I think. We must do some planning together. You and Jim will have two or three short vacations during the college year, and we must make the most of them.”
“It is good of you,” said Nancy impulsively, “to be so interested in me, when a month ago you had never heard of me; and to be so willing for Jim to be friends with me.”
“I judged a great deal by what Jim told me about you yesterday, and I have added to my information by the impressions gained this afternoon,” replied Mrs. Jackson, smiling. “I always expected that sometime my boy would find the girl he wanted to marry; but I confess I was surprised that he found her so soon. I do not realize—mothers never do—that he is grown up. As you have doubtless discovered, Jim is quite diffident, and though he has gone about with the girls considerably, it was mostly in crowds, or with first one and then another. He has never gone with any one steadily; and that, coupled with the fact that he had no sisters, makes him in many ways quite unused to the ways of girls in particular.”
The others came back to them at that moment, and all opportunity for further personal conversation was over.