“But that is not the same. Germany and France didn’t love one another, while you and Andy——”
“Well, it is all over now!” and Nance composed herself and tried to go on with her knitting. Molly thought in her heart perhaps it was not so “over” as Nance thought.
“Why did you and Andy quarrel?”
“I had promised when Father no longer needed me that I would—would—marry him. How could I tell that Mother would want to come live with me when poor Father was gone? Andy came as soon as he learned of Father’s death and seemed to think I could pick right up and marry him, and when I objected to such unseemly haste he said I had been flirting with him. The idea of such a thing! He got it into his head that Dr. Flint, the physician who had been with us through poor Father’s long illness, was the cause of my holding back.”
“A young doctor?”
“Ye-es!”
“Was he—was he—attentive?”
“Perhaps—well, yes—he did propose to me but I had no idea of accepting him. Andy should have known me well enough to realize that I couldn’t be so low as to jilt him. When Andy came, Mother had just told me that she never expected to leave me again. I never did have a chance to tell this to him, he was so angry and so jealous. He wanted me to marry him immediately and leave Vermont,—and how could I when Mother was home, sick and miserable and reproaching herself for having been away from Father so much?”
“Did your mother not know of your engagement to Andy?”
“No-o! You see, poor Mother was not—was not the kind of mother one confided in much. Afterwards, when I nursed her through all those months, she was so softened if I had had anything to confide I should have done so, but then there was nothing left to confide.”