Not Like Other Girls

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

Nan was thinking of Dick; but her mother misunderstood her, and grew alarmed.

“You will not tell the Paines and the other people about here what you intend to do, surely? I could not bear that! no, indeed, I could not bear that!”

“Do not be afraid, dear mother,” returned Nan, sadly, “we are far too great cowards to do such a thing, and, after all, there is no need to put ourselves to needless pain. If the Maynes were here we might not be able to keep it from them, perhaps, and so I am thankful they are away.”

Nan said this quite calmly, though her mother fixed her eyes upon her in a most tenderly mournful fashion. She had quite forgotten their Longmead neighbors, but now, as Nan recalled them to her mind, she remembered Mr. Mayne, and her look had become compassionate.

“It will be all over with those poor children,” she thought to herself: “the father will never allow it,—never; and I cannot wonder at him.” And then her heart softened to the memory of Dick, whom she had never thought good enough for Nan, for she remembered now with a sore pang that her pride was laid low in the dust, and that she could not hope now that her daughters would make splendid matches: even Dick would be above them, though his father had been in trade, and though he had no grandfather worth mentioning.

A few days after their return from Hadleigh, there was an other long business interview with Mr. Trinder, in which every thing was settled. A tenant had already been found for the cottage. A young couple, on the eve of their marriage, who had long been looking for a suitable house in the neighborhood had closed at once with Mr. Trinder’s offer, and had taken the lease off their hands. The gentleman was a cousin of the Paines and, partly for the convenience of the in-coming tenants, and partly because the Challoners wished to move as soon as possible, there was only a delay of a few weeks before the actual flitting.

It would be impossible to describe the dismay of the neighborhood when the news was circulated. 83

Immediately after their return from Hadleigh, Nan and Phillis took counsel together, and, summoning up their courage, went from one to another of their friends and quietly announced their approaching departure.

“Mother has had losses, and we are now dreadfully poor, and we are going to leave Glen Cottage and go down to a small house we have at Hadleigh,” said Nan, who by virtue of an additional year of age was spokeswoman on this occasion. She had fully rehearsed this little speech, which she intended to say at every house in due rotation. “We will not disguise the truth; we will let people know that we are poor, and then they will not expect impossibilities,” she said, as they walked down the shady roads towards the Paines’ house,—for the Paines were their most intimate friends and had a claim to the first confidence.

“I think that will be sufficient; no one has any right to know more,” she continued, decidedly, fully determined that no amount of coaxing and cross-examination should wring from her one unnecessary word.