"I'll try and be pleasant," she said, brightly.
"So you would like to go?" said Miss Phyllis, looking at her earnestly. "Wouldn't you miss—the Ruperts?"
Nan's face flushed.
"Yes," she said, looking down, "I shall miss aunt—and Philip."
Miss Phyllis said nothing for a moment. She had more to tell, but she thought it as well not to say it now. She had taken a sudden fancy to Nan; she wanted the child to come to Beverley, and perhaps, if she told her all, Nan would refuse; at least, looking at the child's honest, fearless eyes, she felt it more prudent to say no more. So Nan was told that she was to go, if she liked, in a week, to her grandfather's and her father's old home.
"Your aunt thought," said Miss Phyllis, "that you might need some new clothes. You see, you will have to dress more at her house than here in Bromfield, and so we will take a week to get you ready. Perhaps it would be as well for you to stay here to-day, and go out with me."
Nan's eyes danced. Never but once since she lived in Bromfield had she owned an entirely new dress. Everything she wore had been "made over" from Mrs. Rupert's or Marian's, and she faintly understood that new clothes of Miss Phyllis's buying would be something unthought of in the Rupert mind.
"I'll leave you here a little while, Nan," said the young lady, "and you can amuse yourself with the books and papers."
But Nan needed nothing of the kind. When the door was closed, she uttered a little half-scream of delight, and jumped up, walking over to the window, where she looked out at the dull town lying smoky and hazy in the distance, and which she felt sure she was about to leave forever. She hardly heard Miss Phyllis returning, and felt startled by the sound of her voice, saying, "Nan, are you ready?" And there was the beautiful young lady in her furs and broad-brimmed hat, with a purse and a little note-book in her hand, ready to lead Nan into the first scene of her enchantment.