Nannie, with a start, said, "Oh, thank you, Mamma."
When Mrs. Maitland, with her knitting and a fistful of unopened letters, came over to the parlor, she had also, tucked into her belt, a check.
It had never occurred to Nannie, in all these years and with a very liberal allowance, to mitigate her parlor. It was still a place of mirrors, grown perhaps a little dim; of chandeliers in balloons of brown paper-muslin, which, to be sure, had split here and there with age, so that a glimmer of cut glass sparkled dimly through the cracks; a place of marble-topped tables, and crimson brocade curtains dingy with age and soot; a place where still the only human thing was Nannie's drawing-board. She was bending over it now, copying with a faithful pencil a little picture of a man and a maid, and a dove and a Love. She was going to give the drawing to Elizabeth; in fact, she had begun it several days ago with joyous anticipation of this happy happening. But now, as she worked, her hand trembled. She had had a letter from Blair, and all her joyousness had fled:
"The Dean is an ass, of course; but mother'll get excited about it, I'm afraid. Do smooth her down, if you can."
No wonder Nannie's hand trembled!
Mrs. Maitland, putting her letters on the table, sat down heavily and began to knit. She glanced at Nannie over her spectacles. "Better get through with it," she said to herself. Then, aloud, "Well, Nannie, so David and Elizabeth have made a match of it?"
For a minute Nannie's face brightened. "Yes! Isn't it fine? I'm so pleased. David has been crazy about her ever since he was a boy."
Well! She was heart-whole! There was no doubt of that; Mrs. Maitland, visibly relieved, dismissed from her mind the whole foolish business of love-making. She began to read her letters, Nannie watching her furtively. When the third letter was taken up—a letter with the seal of the University in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope—Blair's sister breathed quickly. Mrs. Maitland, ripping the envelope open with a thrust of her forefinger, read it swiftly; then again, slowly. Then she said something under her breath and struck her fist on the table. Nannie's fingers whitened on her pencil. Sarah Maitland got up and stood on the hearth-rug, her back to the fire.
"I'll have to go East," she said, and began to bite her forefinger.
"Oh, Mamma," Nannie broke out, "I am sure there isn't anything really wrong. Perhaps he has been—a little foolish. Men are foolish in college. David got into hot water lots of times. But Blair hasn't done anything really bad, and—"