"And I want you to word it very carefully, Nan," said Phyllis, coming up to the little girl with a very serious expression. "You know things are changed with you now, and you must begin at once to let your aunt and her family understand that you are not—they can not expect you—to treat them quite as equals."
Nan was still full of the excitement and delight of her good fortune; yet as Phyllis spoke, looking down gravely upon her, there came a blush of mortification into the child's honest face. A tinge of the same color deepened in Phyllis's soft cheeks for just half a moment, but she said, very decidedly:
"Now, Nan, you are not going to be a foolish, obstinate child, I hope? Surely you must know that I and your aunt Letitia understand these things better than a little girl brought up among vulgar people could. Now there must be no nonsense, my dear."
Phyllis's tone was kind, but something in it made Nan see that she expected obedience; and was she not in every way the most wonderful and beautiful creature Nan had ever seen? Nan's doubts vanished while Phyllis laid out note-paper and pen and ink on a dainty little table drawn up to one of the windows; and when Nan placed herself there to write, her cousin sat down by the fire, with her slippered toes on the fender, and her pretty hands, sparkling with rings, folded gracefully in her lap.
"Now, Nan," she said, "begin your letter. Date it 'The Willows'—that is the name of this place. 'March 8. Dear Mrs. Rupert.'"
Nan smiled quickly.
"Why, Miss—Cousin Phyllis," she said, looking up from the paper, "she would think me crazy; she is Aunt Rebecca, you know."
Miss Rolf's delicate eyebrows drew together in a little frown. She waited a moment, and then, with an impatient sigh, said,
"Very well, let it go—'Dear Aunt Rebecca.'"
Nan's pen scratched on, with many splutterings, for penmanship was her weak point, and had not been considered a very necessary accomplishment in the Rupert household. She looked up presently for further instructions.