Nancy laughingly murmuring that she did remember Mr. Arnold, and blushing with shyness, shook hands with him. She noticed, without dreaming of connecting the fact with herself, that he seemed to be in remarkably good spirits, and that they quite overflowed when he told her how nice it was to see her again, and what a jolly, funny sort of party the whole thing was anyway.
"I wasn't going to bring George," observed Miss Bancroft. "He's usually so tiresomely lazy about tearing himself away from his books or his own company, that I thought I wouldn't bother him to-day. Then lo, and behold, he gets into an unbearable fit of sulks, complains that I'm always ready enough to drag him around with people who bore him to death, and leave him alone whenever anyone interesting turns up—in a word goes into a tantrum, and all but weeps with rage, so I had to bring him." With that she indulged in a chuckle of mischievous laughter, and patted Nancy's cheek.
A big wood-fire crackled noisily inside the huge stone chimney place in the living-room, and around it they all gathered in that comfortable, sociable spirit which is the characteristic mood for tea-time; everyone felt that they had really known everyone else rather longer than they had, and while Miss Bancroft poured out their tea, and chattered away with Uncle Thomas, who stood upright on the hearth-rug, drinking his tea from the mantelpiece, Nancy and Mr. Arnold chatted away as if it were impossible to say everything they wanted to in the course of one short hour or so. As a rule Nancy had a very hard time overcoming her shyness when she had to talk to a young man. She always felt that she might say something that they wouldn't understand, or which they might think affected or priggish—which were the two last sins in the world which she would have wished to be accused of, or with which anyone could accuse her. But with Mr. Arnold, she lost every atom of self-consciousness. He had travelled a great deal, and he had seen the world through a prism of mingled humor and sensitiveness, which gave his conversation the charm of a very original viewpoint on everything. He told her droll stories about his school days in England and Switzerland; recounted innumerable anecdotes about the various people he had seen, many of whom were celebrated for their brains or their follies; and altogether managed to make an hour shorter than many a minute. And in some way, while he talked, he had a way of flattering the shy young girl not by words, but by a hundred indescribable little attentions, paid unconsciously, no doubt, and simply because he was thoroughly delighted to see her again.
"My dear, you mustn't fail to pay me a visit during the holidays," Miss Bancroft urged. "Remember that your father was a very great favorite of mine—and I should like to be a favorite of yours, if Uncle Thomas doesn't supplant me, quite."
The old lady bent and kissed Nancy warmly as she prepared to take her departure.
When the carriage had driven away Nancy and her uncle sat before the fire for a long time. To remember that afternoon was always a delight to Nancy; and she particularly liked to recall the memory of sitting there, as the dusk grew deeper in the room and the daylight faded away into pale tints, and then into a deep, quiet blue, while they sat and watched the fire. The flames had died down, but the long logs were wrapped in a hot, red glow, and every now and then they would pop softly and a spark would drop down into the ruddy embers.
When dinner was over they sat by that fireside until bedtime, chatting away with a thoroughly delightful sense of camaraderie.
Absolutely forgetting her mother and sister's ground of interest in Uncle Thomas, Nancy talked to him quite freely about her ambitions without the slightest feeling of constraint, impressing him unconsciously more than she could have done by the most fervid protestations with her sincerely eager wish to make her life for herself and by herself. And he liked her earnest, youthful spirit of independence, perfectly innocent of any pose of "strong-mindedness"—which to a man like Mr. Prescott would have constituted one of the most unforgivable of feminine failings, ranking equally with the other extreme, of which poor, pretty, helpless Mrs. Prescott was an example.
"So you want to work your way through college? What's the idea?" he asked a bit gruffly. "A pretty girl like you, I should think, would only be planning to marry and settle down in a home of her own."
Nancy colored.