BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE,
Author of "Mildred's Bargain," "Aunt Ruth's Temptation," etc.
Chapter I.
"If a man had eight quarts of wine in one measure, and three in another—"
Nan announced so much of a problem in her arithmetic, and then stopped with a little groan of despair.
"Well?" said her cousin Marian, turning from the window.
"Oh dear!" sighed Nan, "what is the use of lessons, anyway? And if we don't go down town soon, we won't be home in time for tea."
"What if we're not?" said the third inmate of the room, a boy of about thirteen, who was lounging on the sofa. "But hurry up, Nan; there's no use grumbling."
Nan planted her elbows rather more firmly into the table, clutched her curly head with a pair of firm brown hands, and returned to the question of the man and his wine. Marian watched the thin drizzling rain on the garden beds, and Philip read his Robinson Crusoe, regardless of the disorder of shells and minerals about him. For the matter of that, no one of the three young people took special heed of his or her surroundings. Marian did not care; Philip had a boy's feeling that he could not help untidiness; and Nan had, after two years' residence there, grown accustomed to the dingy shabbiness and vulgar disorder of her step-aunt's house in Bromfield.
The room was a nondescript one, above a cheese and butter store. It was half sitting-room, half parlor, and as long as Nan had known it the furniture had been the same, except that the wear and tear of time had made the chairs and table more rickety, the holes in the carpet more dangerous to incautious walkers, and the drawers of the big sideboard or press more uncertain in their way of moving in and out. The room overlooked the main street of Bromfield, and, as I have said, was directly above the store kept by Nan's step-aunt, Mrs. Rupert. A rather dark corridor outside led to a rickety staircase. Below, was only a small room off the store, and a kitchen, while above, the family were crowded into three sleeping-rooms.