"You're a lamb for doing mine for me—I haven't been a bit of help, I know. Oh, you know it's going to be glorious fun—at boarding school. I've always longed to go to boarding school. And it isn't awfully strict at Miss Leland's, Elise Porterbridge says. They have midnight feasts, and all sorts of things—and then, you know, Frank Barrows is at Harvard, and he asked me up there for some dance near Christmas. Don't you think Frank is very nice, Nancy?" This was what Alma had been leading around to, and Nancy knew it. Personally she thought Frank rather an affected youth, but she had sense enough not to air this opinion before Alma just then.
"Why, yes, he seems very nice," she replied, with very mild interest.
"I think he has sort of more to him than most men of his age," pursued Alma, affecting a judicial air.
"Probably he has."
"He dances beautifully. Goodness, I had a wonderful time the other night. I know that you probably think it's wrong of me, but I'd like nothing more than to go to a party like that every night in the week."
"I don't think it's wrong at all—only I think you'd probably get awfully sick of it in a little while. And—and the chief trouble as far as we are concerned is that it's so dreadfully expensive. I know you think I'm always harping on the same string—but do you remember the motto of Mr. Micawber—'Income one pound—expenditure nineteen shillings and sixpence—product, happiness; income one pound, expenditure one pound and sixpence, product, misery——'"
"Well, I know that's very sensible, but there's lots of sense to 'eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die,'" returned Alma, with a gay laugh. "You're thinking about my dress and slippers—I could have killed that person who spilt their fruit punch all over my skirt, but there was nothing to do about it, and besides I'm sure I can hide the stain with a sash or something. I don't believe in worrying." With this, Madame Optimist turned and, pressing her short nose against the window pane, drummed with her little pink nails against the wet glass. The rain was falling again in a monotonous drenching downpour, stripping the trees of the few, brown, shivering leaves that clung to the dripping branches. The promise of Indian summer seemed to have been definitely broken for reasons of Dame Nature's own, and the weather was having a tantrum about it. But inside, the little bedroom was all the cosier in contrast to the woebegone gloom of the early dusk. The chintz window curtains of Nancy's making were faded by many washings, it is true, and the two white iron bedsteads might have looked sprucer for a coat of paint, but with a fire glowing in the grate, and sending out an almost affectionate glint upon all the familiar objects, the little room had an air of motherly cheerfulness and comfort. A shabby but inviting armchair stood in front of the hearth. In a corner, a white bookcase harbored a family of well-worn volumes, ranging from "Grimm's Fairy Tales," and "Stepping Stones to English Literature" to "The Three Musketeers" and "Jane Eyre," all tattered and thumbed, and seeming to wear the happy, weary expression of a rag doll that has been "loved to death."
"Well," Nancy was saying, in reply to Alma's observation, "I don't believe in worrying, but I do believe in having an umbrella if you live in a rainy climate. Then you don't have to worry about the—rain. Comprenez-vous?"
"I comprenez—you are talking in symbols, aren't you? Where's Mother?"
"Here I am, darling," replied Mrs. Prescott from the doorway. "Dear me, the trunks are all packed, aren't they? Nancy, what a wonderful child you are. Oh, whatever am I going to do without my daughters!"