She pauses, catching her breath after her eager speech, and looking yearningly at Nancy. The older girl’s pale face hardened as she caught the imploring glance.
“He seems to me to be very worldly,” she said coldly.
The color rushed to Hester’s cheeks, and she bent quickly over the frame; for a few moments she sewed vigorously, saying to herself with fierce indignation, as she worked:
“I declare if I think Nancy is so spiritual, after all—a judgin’ Fred like that, and all because he told her he liked to go now and then to the the-a-tre!”
Resentment, however, never lingered long in Hester’s heart, and at last she raised her head again.
“I wish you did feel different, Nan,” she said gently. “I can’t bear to think of you not takin’ to the man I’m goin’ to marry. You and me have always seemed jest like sisters ever since Uncle Pete took us to raise.”
Nancy’s blue eyes met the pleading brown ones more gently this time.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “you have been jest like a sister to me, Hetty.”
Hester ran around the frame and threw her arms around her cousin with the eager expression of affection which always embarrassed Nancy.
“Nan,” she cried, “I jest do wish you could see it the way I do. Fred is so good, and it’s only because he lives in town that he has gotten to like such things as the-a-tres. You do take to him sure ‘nough, don’t you?”