“Well, I think they’re a pretty mercenary lot,” said Nancy, stolidly.
“Not at all. People sometimes have a proper sense of the eternal fitness of things,” her mother returned, with withering inconsistency. “Not, of course,” she added, hastily, “that I would consent to your marrying Mr. Thornton if you didn’t care for him.”
Nancy’s face was a study.
“I think too much of him for that.” Mrs. Warren threw her head back proudly.
“He’s a trifle unideal, mother; a bit different, you must admit,” Nancy laughed. “To begin with, he has a regular bay window.”
“Don’t be vulgar, Anne,” her mother said, sharply. “He inherits flesh.”
“Yes, I remember once hearing dad say that old Sid Thornton looked exactly like an inflated bullfrog,” Nancy laughed, wickedly.
“Your dear father had an unfortunate way of expressing himself.” Mrs. Warren drew herself up stiffly. “And I must say, my dear, that you are much more like poor, dear Charles than you are like me.” Mrs. Warren wiped away a tear, and Nancy wondered vaguely whether the tear was for her late and not too loudly lamented father or for the absence of her likeness to his relict.
The next moment Nancy, swiftly penitent, was at her mother’s side, and, taking the still wonderfully young face between her hands, said softly: “Kiss me, Marmee. I’m a brute, I know I am. I know what an awful struggle it has been to keep up appearances. I—I’m sick of it all, too. Only—only, I must think, that’s all. I must be perfectly sure—that I really care—for Mr. Thornton. Don’t say anything more now, dearie,” she pleaded, as her mother started to make some reply. “I’m going off to think.” And, kissing her mother tenderly, this strange little creature of varying moods and tenses went up to her own room to have it out with herself. It was the one place where Nancy Warren felt that she could be perfectly honest with her own soul, where all shams and insincerities could safely be laid aside without fear of that arch-tyrant of a small town, Mrs. Grundy.
She opened her window, and, sitting down on the floor in front of it, her head on the broad sill, gazed, with curiously mingled emotions, at the imposing pile of gray stone on the hill, where Mr. James Thornton lived and moved and had his being.