"You've got money on the brain, Nancy," said Alma, shaking her curls off her face. "You are a regular old miser."
"Well, you're right, perhaps. I—I hate to, heaven knows, but we do have to think about it, Alma. It's the poor gamblers who are always counting on a lucky chance that are ruined. I want to be prepared for the worst—and then if something nice turns up, why, wouldn't that be ten times better than if, when we had been counting on the best, the worst should happen?"
"You see, dears," Mrs. Prescott had entirely missed the point of Nancy's last remark, "Uncle Thomas is very old, and I am sure—I am quite sure that he will relent."
"Oh, Mother!" Poor Nancy flung up both hands in despair.
"I have entered you both at Miss Leland's, so, really, there is no use in arguing about it any more. And I've already sent the check for the first term. Everything is decided. I didn't tell you until to-night, just because I was afraid that this hard-headed old Nancy of mine would try to argue me out of it; when I know that it's the best and wisest thing to do. Nancy, darling, please don't scowl like that. You aren't angry with Mother, are you?" A soft little hand was laid on Nancy's muscular brown one, and in spite of herself the girl relented, with a whimsical smile and a sigh.
"I'd like to see anyone who could be angry with you for two minutes," she said, burrowing her brown head in the lace on her mother's shoulder.
"That nasty old Uncle Thomas has been angry with me for ten years, very nearly. Isn't he a dreadful old man?" laughed Mrs. Prescott, tweaking Nancy's ear.
"We'll have to get a lot of new clothes if we are going to boarding school." Alma, having spread the towel on the floor, reclined full length in front of the fire, and meditated with satisfaction on the delightful prospect.
"Mamma, if I could just once have a hat with a feather on it—a genuine plume, I'd be happy for the rest of my days."
"Wouldn't Alma be lovely?" cried Mrs. Prescott delightedly. "Oh, you don't know how I long to give my daughters everything—everything. One thing you must have, Alma, is a black velvet dress—made very simply, of course. They are so serviceable," she flung this sop to Nancy, who, with her head thrown back, was good-humoredly tracing phantom figures in the air with her forefinger.