“I believe I’d get on better with chickens than with cows,” said Nan. “They wouldn’t scare me so much.”
“Oh, cows are adorable! Aren’t these in this pasture beauties!”
A calf thrust its head through the bars of the fence, and Fanny patted its nose. Nan asked if they all had names and Mrs. Copeland declared that naming the calves was the hardest part of her work.
“I think it’s a mistake for a girl to grow up without knowing how to earn her own living, and I don’t know a thing!” said Nan impulsively.
NAN EXPERIENCED SUDDENLY A DISTURBING SENSE
OF HER INFERIORITY TO THIS WOMAN
Fanny looked at her quickly. If it was in her mind that the obvious and expected thing for Nan to do was to marry Billy Copeland, she made no sign. Nan was amazed to find that she was anxious to appear to advantage before this woman who had every reason for disliking and distrusting her, and she was conscious that she had never seemed so stupid. Her modish gown, her dainty slippers with their silver buckles, contrasted oddly with Fanny’s simple workaday apparel. She was self-conscious, uncomfortable. And yet Fanny was wholly at ease, talking light-heartedly as though no shadow had ever darkened her life.
They reached the house and found that Farley had braved the steps and established himself on the veranda. The maid had brought him a glass of milk which he was sipping contentedly while he ran his eye over a farm paper.
“Mrs. Copeland, what will you take for your place?” he demanded. “If I’d moved into the country when I quit business, the doctors wouldn’t be doggin’ me to death.”
“But Miss Farley tells me you are almost well again! It’s fine that you’ve taken up motoring—a new world to conquer every morning.”