"Oh, goodness, I don't believe I could! I—I mean that sounds so dreadfully cheeky!" exclaimed Nancy.
"I suppose I must seem actually prehistoric to you," he said with a laugh that sounded just a little bit forced. "But if you practised a bit, you'd probably find that it would get easier for you, and it would please me very much. To return to business—I think that if you will let me have the ring, I can get the money on it for you this afternoon. I know the best place to go, where you will get something really proportionate to its value, and on the best terms."
Nancy could have hugged him in her relief and gratitude. She protested a little feebly against his putting himself to any trouble, but he waved her words aside, and she took the ring from her bag, and gave it to him. He looked at it curiously; inside the broad finger band was inscribed in characters almost obliterated by wear, the words, "To George, on his 21st birthday, 1891."'
"It was Father's. Uncle Thomas gave it to him," explained Nancy, simply, and at the same moment both of them were thinking of the eccentric old gentleman, whose gift to a beloved nephew was now being used to assist that nephew's daughter in a difficulty in which his help was denied her.
"Now, how would you like to spend your time for three-quarters of an hour or so?" asked Mr. Arnold, as they walked out of the restaurant. "I am going off with this ring and I'll be back with the money as soon as I possibly can. You pick some place for me to meet you."
Nancy glanced up and down the street, trying to find some spot where she could amuse herself.
"I think I'd like to look around some book-shop—is there one near here?"
"I'm an authority on the subject. I know every book-shop in New York, and if you'll follow me I'll show you my favorite haunt. Then I can be sure that you won't wander away—my only trouble will be in getting you out of the place, and if I were wise I wouldn't let you go there under any circumstances. But my generosity was always very much greater than my wisdom."
He conducted Nancy, accordingly, to this paradise, and rather lingeringly withdrew on his errand, leaving her in the quaint little shop, where perfect tidal waves of books rose on all sides of her, distracting her with alluring, familiar titles, with the sight of hundreds upon hundreds of rare old volumes, and with that peculiar smell of leather and paper and ink and mustiness which is to the nostrils of the book-lover as the scent of earth and trees is to the wanderer.
On one of the shelves her eyes caught a glimpse of a name on the back of three or four delicately bound volumes, and she quickly took one of them down to inspect it, suddenly remembering her uncle's remark about that "author-person." The name on the back of the book was "George Arnold." It was a volume of stories, finely bound, and illustrated with pen drawings by a very famous artist and designer; and was prefaced by a foreword from the pen of one of the most celebrated of the present-day English critics.