Nancy
of
Paradise Cottage

by

SHIRLEY WATKINS

THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.

CONTENTS

Nancy of Paradise Cottage

CHAPTER I

THE HEROINE GOES TO MARKET

"Let's see—bacon, eggs, bread, sugar, two cans of corn, and jam. Have I gotten everything, Alma?" Nancy, checking off the items in her marketing list, looked over toward her sister, who had wandered to the door and stood gazing out into the street where a gentle September rain was falling. Alma did not answer, seeming to have gone into a dream, and the grocer waited patiently, his pencil poised over his pad.

"Alma, do wake up! Have I forgotten anything? I'm sure there was something else," said Nancy, frowning, and studying her list, with her under lip thrust forward. "I regularly go and forget something every Saturday night, when there's no Hannah to concoct something out of nothing for Sunday luncheon."

"You said you were going to bake a cake—a chocolate layer cake," suggested Alma, turning, and viewing the proceeding disinterestedly with her hands in her pockets.

"That's it. I have to get flour, and some cooking chocolate, and vanilla. Alma, you've got to help me carry these things. I'm not Goliath."

"Mercy, Nancy, we don't have to take all that home with us, do we? Can't you send them, Mr. Simpson?"

The grocer shrugged apologetically.

"It's Saturday, Miss Prescott, and the last delivery went out at three—all my boys have gone home now or I'd try to accommodate you."

"I do hate to go about looking like an old market woman, with my arms full of brown paper parcels," murmured Alma, sotto voce to her sister.

"Goodness, I don't imagine there'll be a grand stand along the way, with thousands watching us through opera glasses," laughed Nancy. "Would you mind telling me whom you expect to meet who'd faint with genteel horror because we take home our Sunday dinner? I don't intend to starve to spare anybody's feelings."

"Last week I was dragging along a bag of potatoes—and—and I met Frank Barrows. And the bag split while I was talking to him, and those hateful potatoes went bumping around all over the pavement. I never was so mortified in my life," said Alma, sulkily.

Nancy shot a keen glance at her sister's pretty face, and her eyes twinkled. Alma's shortage of the American commodity called humor was a source of continual quiet joy to Nancy, who was the only member of the Prescott family with the full-sized endowment of that gift.

"Dear me, whatever did Frank do? Scream and cover his eyes from the awful sight? Had he never seen a raw potato in all his sheltered young life?"

Alma shrugged her shoulders—a slight gesture with which she and her mother were wont to express their hopeless realization of Nancy's lack of finer feelings.

"I don't suppose you would have minded it. But I hate to look ridiculous, particularly before anyone like Frank Barrows."

"But, Alma, you funny girl, don't you see that you look a thousand times more ridiculous when you act as if a few potatoes bouncing about were something serious? Don't tell me you stood there gazing off haughtily into the blue distance while Frank gathered up your silly old potatoes? Or did you disown them? Or did you play St. Elizabeth, and expect a miracle to turn them into roses so that they would be less offensive to Frank's aristocratic eyes? Come on now, help me shoulder our provisions. We're members of the Swiss Family Robinson, going back to our hut with our spoils. Pretend we're savages, and this is a desert island, and not respectable Melbrook at all. Next time we go marketing you can disguise yourself with a beard and blue goggles."

Alma laughed unwillingly. She was a dainty and singularly pretty girl—a little bit foolish, and a good bit of a snob, but Nancy adored her, though she enjoyed making good-natured digs at Alma's weak spots.

They took up their bundles, said good-night to Mr. Simpson, and went out.

It was a walk of three miles from the village—or, as it preferred to be called—the town of Melbrook to the Prescotts' house, which lay in the country beyond, a modest little nest enough, where the two girls had grown up almost isolated by their poverty from the gay life of the younger Melbrookians. Alma chafed unhappily against this isolation, chafed against every reminder of their poverty, and, like her mother, once a beauty and a belle, craved the excitement of admiration, luxury and fine things. She was ashamed of the little house, which was shabby, it is true, ashamed of having to wear old clothes, and made herself wretched by envying the richer girls of the neighborhood their beautiful houses, their horses and their endless round of gay times. As Nancy once told her mother, in affectionate reproof, they were always trying to "play rich"—Mrs. Prescott and Alma. She had tried to teach Alma her own secret of finding life pleasant; but Alma did not love books, nor long solitary walks through the summer woods; and Nancy's ambition of fitting herself to meet the world and make her own living seemed to both Alma and her mother dreary and unfeminine. Somewhere, in the back of her pretty head, Mrs. Prescott cherished the hope and the belief that the two girls would find some way of coming into what she called "their own"—not by Nancy's independent plan of action, but through some easier, pleasanter course. She shuddered at the idea of their making their own living, and opposed Nancy's wish to go to college on the ground that no men liked blue-stocking women, and that therefore Nancy would be an old maid.

"But, Mother darling, we can't just sit back and wait for some young millionaire to come and carry us off?" Nancy would plead, shaking her head. Time was flying, and Nancy was seventeen, and eager to begin her own life. "Let me go—I can work my way through, and Alma can stay at home with you."

"I need you to help me with Alma," was Mrs. Prescott's answer. Nancy felt helpless. Her father, before her, had to his sorrow recognized the hopelessness of driving any common-sense views into Mrs. Prescott's pretty, silly little head. She had never realized that the decline of the family's fortune had been, in no small measure, due to her. She accounted for it on the grounds of old Mr. Thomas Prescott's inhuman stubbornness and selfishness.

The two girls, leaving the village behind them, were walking briskly through the rain, down the main road, bordered by the imposing country estates of people who had gradually settled on the pretty countryside. Nancy could remember when the hill, where now stood a staring white stone mansion, surrounded by close-clipped lawns and trim gardens, had been a wild, lovely swell of meadow, dotted with clusters of oaks and elms; when in place of the smug little bungalow, with its artificial pond and waterfall, and ornate stone fences, there had been a wooded copse, where squirrels scuttled about among branches of trees, since fallen in the path of a moneyed civilization. Other of the houses, of haughty Mansard architecture, had stood there before she had been born, and it had often seemed to her that the huge, solemn, beautiful old place of Mr. Thomas Prescott had been there since the Creation. As they passed it, they slackened their pace, and despite the weight of bundles which grew heavier every minute, stopped and peered through the bars of the great, wrought-iron gates.

A broad drive, meticulously raked and weeded, wound away from them under magnificent arching trees, to the portals—Nancy said it would have been impossible to consider Uncle Thomas's door anything but a portal—which were just visible under the low-hanging branches. The rest of the old stone house was screened from the rude gaze of prying eyes, like the face of a faded dowager of the harem; save for the upper half of a massive Norman tower, which thrust itself up out of the nest of green leaves, like the neck of some inquisitive, prehistoric bird.

"I don't believe Uncle Thomas has passed through these gates in fifteen years," said Nancy. "One could almost believe that he had really died and had had himself buried on the grounds, like the eccentric old recluse he is."

"Well, they would have had to have done something with all his money," replied Alma, pressing her forehead against the iron bars; "unless he left everything to his butler, and had the will read in secret. It would be just like him. Oh, Nancy, why are there such selfish old misers in the world? Just think—if he'd just give us the least little bit of all his money. Just enough to get a horse and carriage, and buy some nice clothes, and—and get a pretty house. It wouldn't be anything to him. Mamma says she is sure that he will relent some day."

Nancy shrugged her shoulders. To her mind, it was foolish of her mother to put any hopes on the whims of an old eccentric. Mrs. Prescott was one of those poor optimists who believe earnestly in the miracles of chance, always forgetting that chance works its miracles as a rule only when the way has been prepared for them by the plodding labor of common sense.

"We mustn't count on that, Alma," she said soberly. "There is no use in living on the possibility that Uncle Thomas will relent, and make us rich. It isn't just for the pure love of money that he has been so stingy toward us, I believe. He was never a miser toward Father, you know. I—I think he would have given us everything in the world if—if——" She hesitated, unwilling to state her private opinion to Alma.

"If what?"

"Well, you see, I think the trouble was this. Come along, we mustn't wait here, or you'll catch cold."

"What do you think the trouble was?" prompted Alma, padding after her sister, and sloshing placidly through the puddles, in all the nonchalant confidence of sound rubbers.

"Well, Alma, you mustn't misunderstand me. I'm afraid you will. You know how I adore Mother. She's so pretty, and—and childlike, and funny that nobody on earth could ever blame her——"

"Blame her? For what?" cried Alma, with sudden fire.

"Nothing. Only, Alma, we must realize that sometimes Mother makes little mistakes, and I believe that she has had to pay more heavily for them than she deserves. We've got to try to protect her against them, by looking at life squarely, and wisely, Alma——"

"Are you going to preach a sermon? What were you going to say about Uncle Thomas?"

"Just this. You know Uncle Thomas was a very clever man. He made every bit of his money himself. Father told me long ago that when Uncle Thomas began in life he did not have a cent in the world; he started out as a plain mill-hand, and then he became a mechanic, and he worked his way up from one rung to another, until through his own talent and pluck he became very, very rich. Well, it's only natural that a man like that should give money its full value—when he's toiled for years at so many cents an hour, he knows just exactly how many cents there are in a dollar. Perhaps he puts too great a value upon it, but certainly we aren't judges of that. You know that Uncle Thomas never married, and when Grandfather died, Uncle Thomas became Daddy's guardian. I believe he loved Father better than anyone in the world. Who could help it?" Nancy's voice trembled slightly, and she winked back the tears which rose to her eyes at the memory of her father's handsome merry face, which had grown so unaccountably saddened and worn before his early death.

"He gave Father everything he wanted, when he was a boy—you know how Daddy used to tell us how Uncle Thomas would tiptoe up to his room at night and slip gold pieces into his stocking, so that he could find them in the morning, and then when Daddy asked him about it, he would shrug his shoulders, and his eyes would twinkle, and he'd say, 'It must have been Brownies.'"

"I can't imagine how a man who used to be like that could ever have grown so hard and bitter," said Alma.

"Well—then, you see, when Father grew up, Uncle wanted him to be successful for himself. And he was terribly proud of Father when Daddy first came back and told him that he had made five thousand dollars in his first year at business. Then Father told him that he was going to be married. Uncle didn't want him to—not until he had definitely settled himself in life. And then, Father was very young, and Mother only a girl of seventeen—think of it, just my age. But when Uncle saw Mother, he adored her, of course." Nancy paused, and seemed to have forgotten the rest of her story, but Alma prompted her curiously. She had never heard this tale before, for Nancy had gleaned it bit by bit from her father, when they used to take long walks together through the country, and, putting two and two together, she had been able to get rather close to the real truth of things.

"I know Uncle adored Mother," said Alma, kicking through a pile of wet leaves. "He gave her those lovely Italian earrings, which I'm to have when I'm eighteen. And all that wonderful Venetian lace, which the first one of us to be married is going to have for her wedding gown."

"Yes. Well, then—then after Father and Mother were married things didn't go so very well. Mother was just a girl—just my age, you know, only she was pretty, like you, and, I suppose, a little extravagant. At least, they weren't able to make ends meet very well, although Daddy made a good income—and, anyhow, Uncle Thomas would have thought her extravagant. He didn't see why it was necessary for her to send for her clothes to Paris, and why Father was always worried about bills, when he should have been able to live well within his income. Anyway, Father wasn't able to save a cent, and one day Uncle Thomas came to him and said that he had a very good opportunity for him to invest his savings, so that they would draw a much better income than what they were giving. The only trouble was that Father didn't have any savings. Then Uncle became furious; he asked Father and Mother what kind of future they thought they were laying up for us, and he scolded Mother terribly for not helping Father. He quoted the Bible about women being the helpmeet of their husbands, and about the parents eating sour grapes and setting the children's teeth on edge. He said that they were taking the path to ruin, and that Father could expect no help from him unless he and Mother economized. But you see, poor Mother always considered Paris dresses and jewellery and expensive dainties the necessities and not just the luxuries of life. I don't suppose she really understood how to economize at all. And anyway, things got worse instead of better. Then, one year, Daddy lost an awful lot of money trying to make some quickly so that he could get his debts cleared up, and start fresh. Instead, he only got in deeper. And—and then he fell ill. And you remember, Alma, when poor Father was dying, Uncle came. And he cried and cried. But when Mother came into the room, he got up and went out, and shut the door behind him. Then he shut the gates of his house against us, too. I think he feels that we—we girls must learn to look at life seriously, to work out our own futures—so that poverty will teach us to be wiser than—than poor, darling little Mother——" Nancy's voice had sunk, as if she were talking to herself, so that Alma barely heard the last words. She was thinking of Alma, wondering how she could teach her luxury-loving little sister to see life practically, without taking away the joy of it from her.

"We mustn't rely on Uncle Thomas, Alma," she said presently. "We mustn't count on anything but what we can do for ourselves. Remember that, dear. We've got to realize that our lives must run a different course from those of richer girls—we can never do the things they do—but surely they will be richer lives, and happier lives, if—if we rely on no one, ask nothing from anyone, but what we earn"—her head went up—"never struggle for, or want the things that lie beyond our means, but make always the opportunities that lie within our grasp, or the ones that we can make for ourselves, serve as stepping stones."

Alma glanced at her sister's sober, handsome face. There were times when Nancy looked to her like some brave, gallant, sturdy lad, and there were times when she agreed with Nancy in spite of herself, and against her own inclinations.

"Here we are—home again. And if it isn't the snuggest, cosiest, most cheerful burrow between here and Melbrook, why"—Nancy strode gaily up the little brick walk with her long, boyish strides, and breaking into a laugh, finished, "I'll beard the Prescott himself—tower, donjon-keep and all!"

CHAPTER II

INSIDE THE COTTAGE

It was what Nancy called the pluperfect hour of the day; that is, of a rainy day. The curtains of the living-room were drawn over the windows, the mellow lamplight dealing kindly with their faded folds. The rain, which had brought with it an early autumn chill, beat rhythmically against the panes, and gurgled contentedly from a water spout, as if it were revelling in the fact that it had had the whole countryside to itself for four-and-twenty hours.

Alma had washed her yellow hair, and had built a fire to dry it by. Nancy, in her dressing-gown and slippers, with her own brown mane braided into a short, thick club, was icing the chocolate cake, helping herself generously to the scrapings in the earthenware bowl. Mrs. Prescott was embroidering. This was her greatest accomplishment, learned in a French convent. Knitting bored her to death, and darning drove her crazy, but she could sit by the hour stitching infinitesimal petals on microscopic flowers, and turning out cake mats, tea-cloths and fancy collars by the score. Faded only slightly by her forty-odd years, she was still an exquisitely pretty woman, with a Dresden-china face, marred ever so little by the fine lines which drooped from the corners of her delicate nose to the corners of her childish mouth. Her golden hair was barely silvered, her skin as fresh and rosy as Alma's, and her round little wrists, and pink-tipped fingers, Alma might have envied. The lacy dressing-gown she wore, which, at the slightest motion, shook out a faint little whiff of some expensive French perfume, struck an odd note in the shabby room, where the couch sadly displayed a broken spring, and not the most careful placing of furniture that Nancy could devise entirely concealed the holes in the faded carpet.

"We ought to put a glass cover over Mother, the way some people cover French clocks," Nancy said laughingly. "You're much too valuable to get any of the dust of every-day life on you, Mamma."

"I'm getting old, my dear. I only think of my daughters now," said Mrs. Prescott, with a little sigh and pushing a curly wisp of hair back from her face. "I shall be putting on spectacles soon."

"Catch you! You'd go blind as a bat before you'd do any such violence to your beauty. You're like Alma. I had to argue for half an hour to-day to make Alma wear her raincoat. It wasn't becoming, and she'd far rather die of pneumonia than look like a——"

"A hippopotamus," said Alma. "That's what I look like in the old thing. The sleeves dangle over my hands like a fire hose."

"Nancy, I've come to a definite conclusion in regard to you and Alma, for this winter," said Mrs. Prescott, laying down her embroidery and trying to look practical and decided.

"How much will it cost?" Nancy's eyes twinkled.

"It's not a question of money."

"Nothing ever is—with Mamma and Alma," Nancy thought, but she was silent, and continued to lick the chocolate off her spoon composedly.

"I have thought the whole thing over very carefully, and I am quite sure that the matter of money must not be weighed against the value which it would have for you girls."

"It's not a trip to Europe, is it, Mamma?" asked Alma, quite as if she expected that this might be the case. Indeed, a trip to Europe would have been no more incredible to Nancy than her mother's plan, which Mrs. Prescott proceeded to unfold.

"You see, my dears, living as we do, you girls are absolutely cut off from the opportunities which are so essential to every girl's success in life. This has been a great worry to me. You are growing older, and you are forming no acquaintances that will be of value to you. For this reason I have decided that the expense of sending you both—for a last year, you understand—to a good school, a smart school, a school where Alma can meet girls who will count for something in social life—is an expense that must be met."

"But—heavens, we've had all the ordinary schooling we need," exclaimed Nancy in amazement. "If—if I could just have a few months' tutoring so that I could take my college exams in the spring—I could work my way through college easily——"

"I don't want you to go to college, Nancy," said Mrs. Prescott irritably. "What in the world is the use of a whole lot of ologies and isms—and ruining your looks over a lot of senseless analyzing and dissecting and everything——"

"I won't be studying anything useless, Mother dearest. But don't you see that it will be ever so much easier for me to get a position as a teacher if I can show a Bachelor's degree instead of just a smattering of French, or a thimbleful of ancient history?"

"There's no reason why you should think of becoming a teacher," answered Mrs. Prescott. "And I wish you wouldn't talk about it—it's so dreadfully drab and gloomy."

"But I want to make my living in some way."

"If you and Alma marry well, there won't be any reason why you should make your living."

"But, Mother, we can't count on chance, like that. Suppose Alma and I never met a rich man whom we could love—we'd be helpless."

"A year at Miss Leland's will give both of you plenty of opportunities. You'll meet girls there whom you ought to know, girls who will invite you to their houses, through whom you'll meet eligible young men——"

"The expense of paying for board and tuition at Miss Leland's would be the least of the digging we'd have to do into the family purse. We'd be under obligations to people, which we would never be in a position to repay—we'd be no better than plain, ordinary sponges. I—I couldn't bear it. Besides, the fees at Miss Leland's are terribly high. I could go to college for almost two years on what I'd pay for one year at Miss Leland's—and all that we'd get at that school would be a little French, a smattering of history, dancing and fudge parties."

"And extremely desirable acquaintances."

"But, Mother, we'd never be able to keep up with them on their own scale of living," pleaded Nancy, with a hopeless conviction in her heart that she was talking to the winds. "Girls like Elise Porterbridge and Jane Whiteright have an allowance of a hundred a month, and anything else they want, when they've spent it."

"You've got money on the brain, Nancy," said Alma, shaking her curls off her face. "You are a regular old miser."

"Well, you're right, perhaps. I—I hate to, heaven knows, but we do have to think about it, Alma. It's the poor gamblers who are always counting on a lucky chance that are ruined. I want to be prepared for the worst—and then if something nice turns up, why, wouldn't that be ten times better than if, when we had been counting on the best, the worst should happen?"

"You see, dears," Mrs. Prescott had entirely missed the point of Nancy's last remark, "Uncle Thomas is very old, and I am sure—I am quite sure that he will relent."

"Oh, Mother!" Poor Nancy flung up both hands in despair.

"I have entered you both at Miss Leland's, so, really, there is no use in arguing about it any more. And I've already sent the check for the first term. Everything is decided. I didn't tell you until to-night, just because I was afraid that this hard-headed old Nancy of mine would try to argue me out of it; when I know that it's the best and wisest thing to do. Nancy, darling, please don't scowl like that. You aren't angry with Mother, are you?" A soft little hand was laid on Nancy's muscular brown one, and in spite of herself the girl relented, with a whimsical smile and a sigh.

"I'd like to see anyone who could be angry with you for two minutes," she said, burrowing her brown head in the lace on her mother's shoulder.

"That nasty old Uncle Thomas has been angry with me for ten years, very nearly. Isn't he a dreadful old man?" laughed Mrs. Prescott, tweaking Nancy's ear.

"We'll have to get a lot of new clothes if we are going to boarding school." Alma, having spread the towel on the floor, reclined full length in front of the fire, and meditated with satisfaction on the delightful prospect.

"Mamma, if I could just once have a hat with a feather on it—a genuine plume, I'd be happy for the rest of my days."

"Wouldn't Alma be lovely?" cried Mrs. Prescott delightedly. "Oh, you don't know how I long to give my daughters everything—everything. One thing you must have, Alma, is a black velvet dress—made very simply, of course. They are so serviceable," she flung this sop to Nancy, who, with her head thrown back, was good-humoredly tracing phantom figures in the air with her forefinger.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," she observed, agreeably. "Oh, darling Uncle Thomas, kindly lend us a million. We need it, oh, we need it—every hour we need it!"

"Let's set one day aside for shopping," was Alma's bright suggestion; she felt that this would be her element. "We'll go into the city in the morning, get everything done by noon, lunch at Mailliard's and then go to a matinée. I haven't seen a play since Papa took us to see Humpty Dumpty, when Nance and I were little things."

"I've got eighty-three cents," said Nancy. "I'd like to see the color of your money, ma'am, before we do any gallivanting."

"Well,—I'm not going to sit here gazing at that cake another minute,—please give me a slice, Nancy, sugar-pie, lambkin,—just a wee little scrooch of it," begged Alma, snuffing the handsome chocolate masterpiece of Nancy's culinary skill. Nancy took off a crumb and gave it to her, which elicited a wail of indignation from Alma.

"Well, here you are. And it'll give you a nice tummy-ache, too," predicted Nancy, cutting off a generous slice. "Good heavens—there's the door-bell, Mother!" She stopped, knife in hand and listened, petrified. "Who on earth can be coming here at this time of night, and all of us in our dressing-gowns. Alma, you're the most nearly dressed of all of us. Here, pin up your hair. There it goes again. Fly!"

Alma seized a handful of hairpins, and thrusting them into her hair as she went, ran out of the room.

Nancy and her mother listened with eyebrows raised.

"Must be a letter or something," Nancy surmised. "You don't suppose—it couldn't be——"

Alma forestalled her conjectures, whatever they might have been, by entering the room with her face shining and an opened letter in her hand.

"It's an invitation, Nancy," she beamed. "Isn't that exciting? Elise Porterbridge wants us to come to a 'little dance she's giving next Friday night.' And the chauffeur is waiting for an answer."

"Funny she was in such a hurry," remarked Nancy. "I suppose someone fell out, and she's trying to get her list made up. What do you think, Mother?"

"Why, it's delightful. I want you to know Elise better anyway. You know her aunt married the Prince Brognelotti, and she will probably do everything for that girl when she makes her début." Mrs. Prescott rustled over to the writing-table and despatched a note in her flowing, pointed hand.

"Hush, Mamma, the chauffeur will hear you," cautioned Nancy with a slight frown. It always pricked her when Alma or her mother said snobbish little things, and roused her democratic pride—the stiffest pride in the world.

"A dance," carolled Alma, when the door had slammed again behind the emissary of the Porterbridge heiress. "A real, sure enough dance!" She seized Nancy by the waist and whirled her about; then suddenly she stopped so abruptly that Nancy bumped hard against the table. Alma's face was sober, as the great feminine wail rose to her lips:

"I haven't a thing to wear!"

"You must get something, then," said Mrs. Prescott, positively, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "I want you to look lovely, Alma. It's dreadful to think of a girl with your beauty not being able to appear at your best all the time." Mrs. Prescott had a habit of speaking to Alma as if she were a petted débutante of nineteen, instead of just a pretty, care-free youngster of sixteen. She looked at Nancy, who was the treasurer of the family, much as an impecunious queen might look at her first Lord of the Exchequer while asking him for funds to buy a new crown.

"Why can't you wear your blue crepe," was Nancy's unfeeling answer. "It's very becoming, and you've hardly worn it."

"If you call that an evening dress," Alma cried, on the verge of tears, "you've a vivid imagination—that's all I've got to say. I just won't go if I have to look dowdy and home-made. I wouldn't have any kind of a time—you know that——"

"You could cut out the neck and sleeves, and get a new girdle. I'm going to do that to my yellow, and with a few flowers—there'll be some lovely cosmos in the garden—it'll look very nice. And you're sure to have a good time, no matter what you wear, Alma."

"Oh, she can't go if her clothes aren't just right, Nancy—that's all there is to it," said Mrs. Prescott.

"Clothes," declared Alma, her voice quavering between tears and indignation, "are the most important things in the world. It doesn't matter how pretty a girl is—if her dress is dowdy, no one will notice her."

"And you must remember, Nancy, that she will be compared with girls who will be sure to be wearing the freshest, smartest and daintiest things," added Mrs. Prescott. Nancy began to laugh. They argued with her as if she were some stingy old master of the house instead of a slip of a girl of seventeen. But there was some truth in what Alma had said, and Nancy knew what agonies would torment her if she felt that she fell a whit below any girl at the dance in point of dress. Nancy could sympathize with her there—only it was quite out of the question that both she and Alma should have new dresses. She thought hard a moment. There was not very much left in the family budget to carry them through the remainder of the month—but then she might let the grocer's and butcher's bills run over, or, better still, she might charge at one of the city department stores where the Prescotts still kept an account. It would be too bad if Alma's first dance should be spoiled, even if the couch did go in its shabby plush for another month or so. Five yards of silk would come to about fifteen dollars—new slippers not less than seven, silk stockings, two—that made twenty-four dollars—thirty to give a margin for odds and ends like lining and trimming. Alma would need a pretty evening dress when she went off to school, and she might as well have it now.

"Well, listen, you poor old darling," she said slowly. "To-day's Saturday. If we trot in town on Monday and get the material, we could easily make up a pretty dress for you to wear on Friday night. Let's see——"

"She could have a pale blue taffeta," Mrs. Prescott suggested, who was in her element when the subject turned to the matter of clothes, "made perfectly plain—with a broad girdle—or you could have a girdle and shoulder-knots of silver ribbon—and wear silver slippers with it. It would be dear with a round neck, and tiny little sleeves, and a short, bouffant skirt. You could wear my old rose-colored evening wrap,—it's still in perfect condition."

"That would be scrumptious!" shrieked Alma, flinging her arms about them both. "You two are angelic dumplings, that's what you are."

"Monday morning, then," said Nancy. "We'd better take an early train."

When her mother and sister had gone to bed, she took out her little account book and began to figure, then all at once she flung the pencil down in disgust at herself.

"Alma's right. I'm turning into a regular old miser. I'm not going to bother—I'm not going to bother. But—but somebody's got to." She frowned, staring at the small old-fashioned picture of her father, which smiled gaily at her from the top of the desk. "You left that little job to me, didn't you?" she said aloud, and the memory of some words her father had once spoken to her laughingly came back to her mind—"You're my eldest son, Nancy—mind you take care of the women."

"Only I'm jolly well sick of being a boy, Daddy," she said, as she jumped into bed. "I'll let the first person who steps forward take the job."

CHAPTER III

A MODERN CINDERELLA

"Let's take a cab to the station. The roads are awfully wet still, and I'll ruin my shoes," suggested Alma. The little family were at breakfast, Nancy and Alma hastily swallowing their coffee so that they could hurry off to the station. After the fit of autumn wind and rain, another summer day had come, with a glistening sunlight which was doing its best to cheer up the drooping flowers in the tiny garden.

"We don't need a cab. What are you talking about?" replied Nancy, glancing out of the window. "It's a wonderful day, and we don't have to make for all the puddles on the way to the station like ducks. By the way, don't let me forget to stop at the bank. I dare say I ought to take some money with me in case we can't get just what we want at Frelinghuysen's. How much do you think we should have, Mother?"

"Seventy-five dollars ought to be enough," said Mrs. Prescott vaguely, after a moment's calculation. Nancy whooped.

"Seventy-five! Good gracious—why, if I spend a cent over forty, we'll have to live on bread and water for the rest of the month!"

"Well, just as you think, dear—you know best, of course," Mrs. Prescott answered absently. "You two had better be starting. I wish you would get Alma a new hat while you're in town, Nancy. I don't quite like that one she has—it doesn't go with her suit."

Nancy pushed her chair back from the table.

"I'll trot out and see Hannah a moment. We have about thirty-five minutes, Alma."

It took them twenty minutes to walk to the station. Alma was in high spirits, Nancy still thoughtful. But the wind was up and out, tossing the trees, rippling the puddles, which reflected a clear, sparkling sky, and the riotous, care-free mood of the morning was infectious.

As the train sped through the open country, passing stretches of yellowing fields, clusters of woodland and busy little villages, Alma chattered joyously:

"Aren't you awfully glad about the party, Nancy? Don't you think we can go to a matinée—it's such a deliciously idle, luxurious sort of thing to do! I'm going to have chicken patties for luncheon, and lots of that scrumptious chocolate icecream that's almost black. Don't you love restaurant food, Nancy? It's such fun to sit and watch the people, and wonder what they are going to do after luncheon, and what they are saying to each other, and where they live. When I'm married I shall certainly live in town, and I'll have a box at the opera, and I'll carry a pair of those eye-glasses on jewelled sticks—what-do-you-call-'ems—and every morning I'll go down-town in my car and shop, and then I'll meet my husband for luncheon at Sherry's or the Plaza."

"Of course you'll have a country-place on Long Island," suggested Nancy, with good-natured irony, which Alma took quite seriously.

"Oh, yes. With terraces and Italian gardens. I would love to be seen standing in a beautiful garden, with broad marble steps, and rows of poplar trees, and a sun-dial——"

"For whose benefit?"

"Oh, my own."

"We're feeling rich to-day, aren't we?"

"Well, I don't know anything that feels better than to be going to buy a new dress. Shall we get the hat too, Nancy?"

"What do you think?"

Alma hesitated.

"Well, I suppose we'd better wait. It's funny how when you start spending money at all you want to get everything under the sun. Of course, girls like Elise or Jane do get everything they want——"

"Exactly. And when you're with them you feel that you must let go, too. And if you can't afford it——" Nancy shrugged her shoulders, and Alma finished for her:

"It makes you miserable."

"Or else," said Nancy, with a curl of the lip, "or else, if you aren't bothered with any too much pride, you'll do what that Margot Cunningham does. She simply camps on the Porterbridges. Elise is so good-natured that she lets Margot buy everything she likes and charge it to her, and Margot finds life so comfy there that she can't tear herself away. I'd rather work my fingers to the bone than take so much as a pair of gloves given to me out of good-natured charity!" Nancy's eyes sparkled. Alma was silent. There were times when Nancy's fierce, stubborn pride frightened her—sometimes the way her sister's lips folded together, and her small, cleft chin was lifted, made her fancy that there might be a resemblance between Nancy and old Mr. Prescott. Alma was the butterfly, and Nancy the bee; the butterfly no doubt wonders why the bee so busily stores away the honey won by thrift and industry, and, in all probability, the bee reads many a lesson to the gay-winged idler who clings to the sunny flower. But to-day the bee relented.

"Now, ma'am, consider yourself the owner of unlimited wealth," said Nancy, as they swung briskly into the concourse of the Grand Central Station. "You're a regular Cinderella, and I'm your godmother, who is going to perform the stupendously brilliant, mystifying act of turning twenty rolls of sitting-room wall-paper, and three coats of brown paint into—five yards of superb silk, two silver slippers, two silk stockings, and three yards of silver ribbon; or, one simple country maiden into a fashionable miss of entrancing beauty."

"Nancy, you're the most angelic person!" squealed Alma. "But aren't you going to get yourself something, too? It makes me feel awfully mean to get new things when you have to wear that dowdy old yellow thing."

"Dowdy, indeed. It's grand. 'Miss Nancy Prescott was charming in a simple gown of mousseline-de-soie, which hung in the straight lines now so much in vogue. Her only ornaments were a bouquet of rare flowers, contrasting exquisitely with the shade of her frock,—a toilette of unusual chic. Miss Alma Prescott, Melbrook's noted beauty, was superb in a lavish creation'—You're going to be awfully lavish, and quite the belle of the ball."

"You ought to have some new slippers, Nancy—a pair of gold ones would absolutely make your dress."

"My black ones are all right. I'll put fresh bows on them," said Nancy, firm as a Trojan outwardly, though within her resolution wavered. Dared she take another seven dollars? She began to feel reckless.

"Are you waited on, madam?" The smooth voice of a saleswoman roused her from her calculations.

"We want to see some blue taffeta—not awfully expensive."

"Step this way. We have something exquisite—five dollars a yard."

"Oh, haven't you anything less than that?" stammered Nancy in dismay. Alma glanced at her reprovingly.

"For heaven's sake, don't sound as if you hadn't a dollar to your name, or she'll just right-about-face and walk off," she whispered. "We'll look at the expensive silk, and then work around to the cheaper—explain that it's more what we want, and so on."

"Yes, and the cheaper silk will look so impossible after we've seen the other that we'll be taking it," returned Nancy. "I know their wiles."

"Here is a beautiful material—quite new," lured the saleswoman. "A wonderful shade. It will be impossible to duplicate. See how it falls—as softly and gracefully as satin, but with more body to it. The other is much stiffer."

"How—how much is it?" asked Nancy feebly.

"Five-ninety-eight. It's special, of course. Later on the regular price will be six-fifty."

"Isn't it lovely?" breathed Alma, touching the gleaming stuff with careful fingers.

"Have—have you anything for about three dollars a yard?" asked Nancy, wishing that Alma would do the haggling sometimes.

The saleswoman listlessly unrolled a yard or two from another bolt and held it up.

"Is it for yourself, madam? Or for the other young lady?"

"It's for my sister. Let me hold this against your hair, Alma."

"It's not nearly so nice as the other, of course," observed Alma, in a casual tone. "It's awfully stiff, and the color's sort of washed out. I really think——"

"Oh, of course, this paler shade is not nearly so effective at night," agreed the saleswoman, pouncing keenly upon her prey. "See how beautifully this deeper color brings out the gold in the young lady's hair. Would you like to take it to the mirror, miss?"

"Oh, don't, Alma!" begged Nancy, in comical despair. "Of course there isn't any comparison." She felt herself weakening. "I—I suppose this would really wear better too."

"Of course it would," said Alma, quickly. "That other stuff is so stiff it would split in no time."

Five times five-ninety-eight—thirty dollars. Nancy wrinkled her forehead, but she knew that she had succumbed even before she announced her surrender. The saleswoman, watching her, lynx-eyed, smiled. Alma preened herself in front of the long mirror, frankly admiring herself, with the soft, silken stuff draped around her shoulders.

"All right," said Nancy. "Give me five yards."

"Charged?" purred the saleswoman. But Nancy had no mind to have the gray ghost of her extravagance revisit her on the first of the month.

"No, no! I'll pay for it, and take it with me." She counted out her little roll of bills, trying not to notice the pitiable way in which her purse shrank in, like the cheeks of a hungry man.

"Is there nothing you would like for yourself, madam?" murmured the voice of the temptress. "Here is some ravishing charmeuse—the true ashes-of-roses. With your dark hair and eyes——"

"Oh, no—no, thanks." Nancy clutched Alma, and turned her head away from the shimmering, pearl-tinted fabric. For all her stiff level-headedness, she was only human, and a girl with a healthy, ardent longing for beautiful finery; prudent she was, but prudence soon reaches its limits when the pressure of feminine vanity and exquisite luxury is brought to bear upon it. There was only one course of resistance. Nancy fled.

"Now, slippers." Alma skipped along beside her, hugging her precious bundles, with shining eyes, and cheeks aglow. "I think I love slippers better than anything in the world. Nancy, you're a perfect lamb."

They tried on slippers. Certainly Alma's tiny foot and slender ankle was a delightful object to contemplate as she turned it this way and that before the little mirror.

"If you had a little buckle, miss—we have some very new rhinestone ornaments—I'd like to show you one—a butterfly set in a fan of silver lace. Just a moment."

Before Nancy could stop her the saleswoman had gone.

"We won't get the buckles, you dear old thing," Alma said consolingly, bending the sole of her foot. "We'll just look at them."

Nancy smiled wryly.

"I'd like to get you everything in the shop—I hate to be stingy with you, dear; it's just this old thing," and she held up the shabby purse.

"Isn't that perfectly gorgeous?" shrieked Alma, as the saleswoman held a little jewelled dragon-fly, poised on a spray of silver lace, against her instep.

"Gorgeous," echoed Nancy.

"It's a very chic trimming—of course we use it only on the handsomer slippers," chanted the saleswoman. "Now, we could put that on for you in five minutes, and really the expense would be small, considering that nothing more would be needed as an ornament, and it would be the smartest thing to wear—no trimming on the dress whatever."

"How much would it be?" asked Alma. "I—I can't take it now, but later——"

"The buckles are five dollars, and with the lace fan it would come to seven. I would advise you—the prices will go up in another month——"

"Well, Alma——" Nancy hesitated, made one last frantic grasp at her fleeting prudence and surrendered. "Fourteen dollars. All right. You can take the buckles as a Christmas present from me. I'll pay for those, and we'll be back for them after we've got some other things."

"Nancy, you angel! You lamb! You duck! You angelic dumpling!" crowed Alma. "I never felt so absolutely luxurious in all my life."

"I don't imagine you ever did," remarked Nancy; she was aghast at her own extravagance. She judged herself harshly as the victim of the failing which she had so long combatted in her mother and sister. Every atom of the prudence with which she had armed herself seemed to be melting away like wax before a furnace. She had already spent forty-four dollars, and there was still the silver ribbon to be bought, which would bring the sum up to forty-five at the very least. She had originally intended to buy one or two small items with which to freshen up her own dress for the dance, but she stubbornly put aside the idea.

"Nancy, darling, aren't you going to get yourself some slippers?"

"No—I don't need them. The ones I have are quite good."

"I feel so mean, Nancy. Do you think I'm horribly selfish?"

"Selfish! You aren't the least bit selfish, dear. I can understand perfectly how you hate to go among all those rich girls without looking as well-dressed as any of them, when you're a thousand times prettier than the nicest looking one of them. Besides, just this once——" She paused, realizing that it was not a case of "just this once" at all. Pretty, new clothes and pocket money would be the barest necessities when they should be at Miss Leland's. Why didn't her mother see the folly of sending them to a place where they would learn to want things, actually to need things, far beyond the reach of their little bank account, and where Alma, chumming with girls who had everything that feminine fancy could desire, would either be made miserable, or—she tried to rout her own practical thoughts. Why was it that she was so unwilling to trust in rosy chance? Why was it always she who had to bring the wet blanket of harsh common sense to dampen her mother's and sister's debonair trust in a smiling Providence? Was she wrong after all? She considered the lilies of the field, but somehow she could not believe that their example was the wisest one for impecunious human beings to follow. Lilies could live on sun and dew, and they had nothing to do but wave in the wind.

"Oh, look, Nancy—aren't those feather fans exquisite——"

"Alma, don't you dare to peep at another showcase in this store, or I'll tie my handkerchief over your eyes and lead you out blindfolded like a horse out of a fire."

"But do look at those darling little bottles of perfume. They're straight from Paris. I can tell from those adorable boxes with the orange silk tassels. Wouldn't you give anything on earth to have one? When I'm rich I'm going to have dozens of bottles—those slender crystal ones with enamel tops; and they'll stand in a row across the top of a Louis XVI dressing-table." Nancy smiled at Alma's ever-recurring phrase, "When I'm rich." She wondered if her butterfly sister had formed any clear notions of how that beatific state was to be realized.

"Alma Prescott, there's the door, and thank heaven for it. Have the goodness, ma'am, to go directly through it. The street is immediately beyond, and that is the safest place for us two little wanderers at present."

Forty-five dollars for just one evening's fun.

Gold slippers would have been just the thing to wear with her yellow dress; but—well——

CHAPTER IV

LADIES OF FASHION

The little bedroom which Alma and Nancy shared together wore a gaily topsy-turvy appearance on that memorable night—quite as if it had succumbed to the mood of flighty joy which was in the air. The dresser, usually a very model of good order—except when Alma had been rummaging about it unchecked—was strewn with hairpins, manicuring implements, snips of ribbon and the stems of fresh flowers; all the drawers were partly open, projecting at unequal distances, and giving glimpses of the girls' simple underwear, which had been ruthlessly overturned in frantic scramblings for such finery as they possessed. A fresh, slightly scented haze of powder drifted up as Nancy briskly dusted her arms and shoulders, and then earnestly performed the same attentions for Alma. Mrs. Prescott sat on the edge of the bed, alive with interest in the primping, and taking as keen a delight in her daughters' ball-going as she had done in her own preparations for conquest twenty years before. As critical as a Parisian modiste, she cocked her pretty head on one side and surveyed the girls with an expression of alertness mingled with satisfaction—such as you might see on the face of a clever business man who watches the promising development of a smart plan, with elation, though not without an eye ready to detect the slightest hitch.

Unquestionably she was justified in pinning the highest hopes on Alma's eventual success in life—if sheer exquisite prettiness can be a safe guarantee for such. Alma, who had plainly fallen in love with herself, minced this way and that before the glass, blissfully conscious of her mother's and sister's unveiled delight in her beauty. Her yellow hair, bright as gold itself spun into an aura of hazy filaments, was piled up on top of her head, so that curls escaped against the white, baby-like nape of her neck. Her dress was truly a masterpiece, and if there had been a tinge of envy in Nancy's nature she might have regretted the skill with which she herself had succeeded in setting off Alma's prettiness, until her own good looks were pale, almost insignificant, beside it. But Nancy was almost singularly devoid of envy and could look with the bright, impersonal eyes of a beauty-lover at Alma's distracting pink and white cheeks, at her blue eyes, which looked black in the gas-light, and at her round white neck and arms—the dress left arms and shoulders bare except for the impudent, short puffed sleeves which dropped low on the shoulder like those of an early Victorian beauty; anything but Victorian, however, was the brief, bouffant skirt, which showed the slim ankles and the little, arched feet, in their handsome slippers.

"You're perfectly—gorgeous, Alma. You've a legitimate right to be charmed with yourself," said Nancy, sitting down on the bed beside her mother to enjoy Alma's frank struttings and posings.

"I am nice," agreed Alma naïvely, trying to suppress a smile of self-approval which, nevertheless, quirked the corners of her lips. "You did it, though, Nancy darling. I don't forget that, even if I do seem to be a conceited little thing." She danced over and kissed Nancy's cheek lightly, her frock enchanting her with its crisp rustlings as she did so. "Nancy, you will get something nice, too,—the next time?"

"You should have made up a new dress for to-night, anyhow, Nancy," said Mrs. Prescott, turning to inspect Nancy's appearance from the top of her head to the toes of her freshly ribboned slippers. Nancy colored slightly. It had not been a very easy task to overcome the temptation to "blow herself," as Alma would have debonairly expressed a foolish extravagance; and it was not particularly soothing to have that feat of economy found fault with.

"If—if you think I look too dowdy, I—I'll stay at home, Mother," she said, in a quiet tone that betrayed a touch of hurt pride. "You know it was out of the question for me to get another dress, and if you feel sensitive about my going to people like the Porterbridges in what I've got, why, it's absurd to attempt it at all."

Mrs. Prescott was abashed; then in her quick, sweet, impulsive way—so like that of a thoughtless, lovable little girl—she put her arms around Nancy's straight young shoulders.

"Don't be cross with me, darling. I only said that because it hurts me to think that you have to deny yourself anything in the world. You are so sweet, and so strong, and—and I love you so, my dear, that I cannot bear to think of your having to deny yourself the pretty things that are given to the daughters of so many other women."

Instantly Nancy unbent, and, turning her head so that she could kiss her mother's soft hair, she whispered, with a tender little laugh:

"Before you begin pitying us, dearest, you can—can just remember that other women's daughters haven't been given—a mother like you." And then, because, just like a boy, she felt embarrassed at her own emotion, and the tears that had gathered in her eyes, she said briskly:

"If anyone should ask me my candid opinion, I'd say that I'm rather pleased with myself—only some inner voice tells me that I'm not completely hooked. Here, Mother——" By means of an excruciating contortion she managed to indicate a small gap in the back of her dress just between the shoulder blades.

"You do look awfully nice, Nancy," commented Alma; she paused reflectively a moment, and then added, "You know, I suppose that at first glance most people would say I was—was the prettier, you know—because I'm sort of doll-baby-looking, and pink and white, like a French bonbon; but an artist would think that you were really beautiful—I hit people in the eye, like a magazine cover, but you grow on them slowly like a—a Rembrandt or something."

"Whew! We've certainly been throwing each other bouquets broadcast to-night," laughed Nancy, who was tremendously pleased, nevertheless. "You'd better put your cloak on, Alma, and stop turning my head around backwards with your unblushing flattery. Isn't that our coach now?"

The sound of wheels on the wet gravel and the shambling cloppity-clop of horses' hoofs, had indeed announced the arrival of the "coach."

"Darn it, that idiotic Peterson has sent us the most decrepit old nag in his stable," remarked Alma, looking out of the window as she slid her bare arms into the satin-lined sleeves of her wrap. "I think he calls her 'Dorothea,' which means the 'Gift of God.'"

"She looks like an X-ray picture of a baby dinosaur. I hope to heaven she won't fall to pieces before we get within walking distance of the Porterbridges'," said Nancy. "I think that so-called carriage she has attached to her must be the original chariot Pharaoh used when he drove after the Israelites."

In a gay mood, the two sisters climbed into the ancient coupé, which smelt strongly of damp hay, and jounced away behind the erratic Dorothea, who started off at a mad gallop and then settled abruptly into her characteristic amble.

A light, gentle, steady rain pattered against the windows, which chattered like the teeth of an old beggar on a wintry day. The two girls, deliciously nervous, would burst into irrepressible giggles each time when, as they passed a street lamp, the ridiculously elongated shadow of Dorothea and the chariot scurried noiselessly ahead of them and was swallowed up in a stretch of darkness.

"My dear, I'm scared pink!" breathed Alma, pinching Nancy's arm in a nervous spasm. "My tummy feels just as if I were going down in an awfully quick elevator."

"I don't see what you are scared about," replied Nancy. "I almost wish this regal conveyance of ours would break down."

"It feels as if one of the wheels were coming off."

"I guess they are all coming off; but it's been like that since the dark ages already, and I dare say it will last another century or so."

"Look! There's Uncle Thomas' house, now. Doesn't it look exactly like something that Poe would write about? That one light burning in the tower window, with all the rest of the house just a huge black shape, is positively gruesome."

The two girls peered through the dirty little mica oval behind them at the strange old mansion, the bizarre turrets of which were silhouetted against the sky, where the edges of the dark clouds had parted, and the horizon shone with a paler, sickly light.

"It is eerie looking. I suppose old Uncle T. is up in that room poring away over his books, and the last thing he'd be thinking of is his two charming nieces bouncing off to an evening of giddy pleasure in this antique mail-cart, or whatever it is."

"Oh, my dear!" Alma squealed faintly. "We're getting there! Oh, look at all the automobiles. We can't go in in this dreadful looking thing."

"All right. You can get out and walk. I say, do your hands feel like damp putty?"

"Do they! I feel as if I were getting the measles. Oh, here we are, Nancy!" Alma's tone would have suggested that they had reached the steps of the guillotine. Dorothea, alone, was unmoved, and almost unmoving. With her poor old head dangling between her knees, she crawled slowly along the broad, well-lighted driveway of a very new and very imposing house, beset fore and aft by a train of honking and rumbling motors. Nancy burst into a little breathy quaver of hysterical laughter.

"We must try to be more like Dorothea," she giggled. "Her beautiful composure is due either to an aristocratic pedigree or to her knowledge that she is going to die soon, and all this is the vanity of a world which passes."

In spite of their inner agony of shyness, however, the two girls descended from the absurd old carriage at the broad steps, and reached the door, under the footmen's umbrellas, with every outward appearance of well-bred sang-froid.

"I'm so glad you could come, Nancy. Alma, how lovely you look. Don't you want to go upstairs and take off your wraps?" Elise Porterbridge, a tall, fat girl, dressed in vivid green, greeted them; and, with all the dexterity of a matronly hostess, passed them on into the chattering mob of youths and girls which crowded the wide, brightly lighted hail. Alma clutched Nancy's arm frantically as they squeezed their way through to the stairs.

"Did you see a living soul that you knew besides Elise?" whispered Alma as they slipped off their wraps into the hands of the little maid. "Oh, it would be too awful to be a wall-flower after I've gone and gotten these lovely slippers and everything."

"Don't be a goose. This is a good time—don't you know one when you see it? Here, pinch your cheeks a little, and stop looking as if you were going to have a chill. You're the prettiest girl here, and that ought to give you some courage."

While Nancy poked her dress and tucked in a stray wisp of hair, Alma stood eyeing the modish, self-assured young ladies who primped and chattered before the long mirrors around them, with the round solemn gaze of a hostile baby. How could they be so cool, so absolutely self-contained?

"Come on,—you look all right," said Nancy aloud, and Alma marvelled at the skill with which her sister imitated that very coolness and indifference. If she had known it, Nancy was inwardly quaking with the nervous dread that attacks every young girl at her first big party like a violent stage fright.

They made their way slowly down the broad stairs, passing still more pretty, chattering debonair girls who were calling laughing, friendly greeting to the young men below.

From one of the other rooms a small orchestra throbbed beneath the hum of voices; the scent of half a dozen French perfumes mingled and rose on the hot air; and the brilliant colors of girls' dresses stirred and wove in and out like the changing bits of glass in a kaleidoscope.

"Er—I say—good-evening, Miss Prescott. I got to you first, so I've a right to the first dance." It was Frank Barrows, the hero of Alma's potato adventure, who claimed Alma before her little silver foot had reached the last step. A lean young man, with sleek, blond hair, a weak chin, and the free-and-easy, all-conquering manner of a youth who has been spoiled by girls ever since he put on long trousers and learned to run his own car, he looked at Alma with that look of startled admiration which to a young girl is a sweeter flattery than any that words can frame. She looked up at Nancy with a glance of joyous, innocent triumph, and then, putting her plump little hand on her partner's arm, and instantly meeting his gallantry with the pretty, utterly unconscious coquetry of a born flirt, she moved off.

Nancy, still standing at the foot of the stairs, watched the yellow head as it passed among the heads of the other dancers. That quick, happy glance of Alma's had said, "Forgive me for being so pretty. You are better, and finer, and more beautiful—but they haven't found it out yet."

She stood alone, terribly shy, her smooth cheeks flushing scarlet, and her bright eyes searching timidly for some friendly corner where she could run and hide herself away for the rest of the evening. Without Alma beside her to be petted and protected, she looked almost pathetically just what she was—a modest young girl, who was peculiarly lovely and appealing, as she stood waiting with a beating heart to catch a friendly eye in all that terrible, gay, selfish throng of pleasure-seekers.

CHAPTER V

A RETICENT GENTLEMAN—AND MISS BANCROFT

With only the one aim of getting to harbor by hook or crook, Nancy, her cheeks burning with shyness, edged her way along the wall. She would not have felt half so much alone if she had been dropped into the middle of the Sahara desert, and, while her little feet tingled with the rhythm of the music, she surrendered herself to the unhappy conviction that she was doomed to be a wall-flower.

She did not know these people; she felt as if she could never know them. Everything in their manner, their speech and their dress suggested a foreignness to her own nature that could never be bridged, unless she herself changed and became another being. It was something that she could not define, this difference; it was simply something that grew out of a different way of thinking and feeling about life. All these people seemed to make pleasure their business, the most important purpose of their existence, and this attitude, expressed in the very way that the girls carried themselves, in the tones of their voices, in their light scraps of inconsequential and not very clever talk, made her feel strange beyond description.

She stood near a group of palms under the arch of the staircase, watching the faces all about her, longing one minute to be at home, curled up with a book on her shabby, comfortable window-seat, and the next, that she might be drawn into the centre of all that bubbling, companionable enjoyment. Now she caught a glimpse of Alma, who was standing near the door of the dancing-room, bantering and coquetting with a little cluster of youths who had gathered about her, heaven knows where from or how, like flies about a jar of new honey; it was plainly Alma's natural environment, in which she revelled like a joyous young fish in a sunny pool.

"So that pretty little creature is George Prescott's daughter?" The question, spoken in a rather deep and penetrating voice, carried clearly to Nancy's ears, and she turned. At a little distance from her, seated on a small couch, sat Mrs. Porterbridge, a lean woman with a tight-lipped, aquiline face, and painfully thin neck and arms, and the old lady who had put the question. A quite remarkable-looking old lady, Nancy thought, enormously fat, dressed in purple velvet, her huge, dimpled arms and shoulders billowing, out of it, like the whipped cream on top of some titanic confection. Two small, plump, tapering hands clasped a handsome feather fan against her almost perpendicular lap. Two generous chins completely obliterated any outward evidences of neck, so that her head seemed to have been set upon her shoulders with the naïve simplicity of a dough-man's; yet for all this, one glance at her keen, intelligent face, with its sleepy, twinkling eyes and humorous, witty mouth, was enough to assure one that, whoever she might be, she was not an ordinary old lady by any means. One guessed at once that she had seen much of the world in her sixty-five or seventy years, that she had enjoyed every moment of the entertainment, and that while she probably required everyone else to respect public opinion, she felt comfortably privileged to disregard it herself whenever she pleased. She had been busily discussing everyone who attracted her attention, disdaining to lower her sonorous voice or to conceal in any way the fact that she was gossiping briskly. Young and old alike hastened up to her to pay their respects, and it was evident from their manner of eager deference that she was a rather important old person, whose keen and fearless tongue made her good opinion worth gaining.

At present she had centred her lively interest upon Alma, and Nancy could not resist the temptation of listening to her remarks, especially since the old lady was obviously perfectly willing to let anyone and everyone hear her who might have reason to listen.

"That is little Alma Prescott," Mrs. Porterbridge was replying. "She is charmingly pretty, isn't she?"

"The image of her mother. Tell me something about them. It's ridiculous, isn't it, how we can live for years within a stone's throw of our neighbors without ever knowing whether their Sunday clothes are made of silk or calico. George Prescott used to be my particular favorite, when he was a youngster. I remember when he married that empty-pated little beauty—I gave him tons of my choicest advice—was absolutely prodigal of my finest gems of wisdom; but when I saw her—well, I knew very well that there would be ups and downs—she should have married an Indian nabob—but, thought I, I might as well shout to the north wind to be placid as to tell him to give her up and find himself some sensible, excellent creature, who could mend his socks and turn his old suits for him. He would rather have lived on burnt potatoes and bacon, with that charming little spendthrift, than have enjoyed all the blessings of good housekeeping at the hands of the most estimable creature we could have found for him. I do like that spirit in a young man, however much my excellent common sense may disapprove of it.

"I saw nothing of George after his marriage. I was too fond of him to stand around offering advice, when he couldn't possibly make any use of it. I should probably have lost my temper just as Tom Prescott did—and I cannot endure to be in such a ridiculous position. I had a notion that Lallie Prescott didn't live here any more."

"I believe that the family suffers rather keen financial difficulties," said Mrs. Porterbridge. "The girls go out very little—are quite isolated, in fact."

"You mean that they are hard up—don't use those genteel euphemisms, my dear,—I can't understand 'em.

"I'm sorry. It was inevitable, of course, but I'm one of the few beings that sincerely regret seeing other people reaping what they've sown. I've always avoided my own deserts so successfully." Her big, jolly laugh rang out at this. "There are two girls, I remember. Both pretty?"

"Yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Porterbridge, in the unenthusiastic tone with which the mother of a rather plain daughter will praise the beauty of another woman's daughter.

"Hum. Well, that's distinctly something. I really couldn't work up any heartfelt interest in them if they were ugly—though, of course, I understand that beauty is only skin deep, and handsome is as handsome does, and all that—whoever invented those saws must have been unbearably ugly—I've always suspected that it was some plain, jealous old wife of King Solomon who got very philosophical in her old age. Now, I'd really like to know what little Lallie Prescott is going to do with them."

Mrs. Porterbridge gave a dry, affected little laugh, looking at Alma, who was waltzing again with the obviously infatuated Frank Barrows.

"Well, I imagine that she is going to do all that she can to marry them off as advantageously as possible, and I dare say that both of them——"

"Now, don't say anything cattish, my dear," interrupted the old lady, quite sharply, a sudden coldness routing the twinkle in her merry eyes. "I always know when you are going to say something that will annoy me, and nothing annoys me more than to hear an older woman say anything unkind about a young girl. I tell you this because I'm sure that you don't want to make me angry. If you are trying to tell me that Lallie Prescott is a schemer in regard to the future of her two daughters, why, I should be very much surprised to learn anything else. We are all schemers for our children—and just as in love and war, we consider everything fair so long as it works for their advantage. But——"

Nancy, her cheeks burning, heard no more. In a last desperate effort at escape, she turned and fled unseen through the nearest doorway.

At first she did not realize where she was; then she discovered that she had chanced upon a veritable haven of refuge, a large, quiet room, cosily lighted by a reading-lamp, furnished with huge, paternal-looking armchairs and divans, and lined on three of its walls from floor to ceiling with whole regiments of books. The fourth wall was monopolized by a great stone fireplace, where three or four tree-trunks smouldered softly, popping every now and then into small explosions of ruddy sparks. The smell of leather, of wood smoke, and even the delicate musty smell of the rich, yellowed paper of old books mingled with the hazy fragrance of a Turkish cigarette. Nancy was too much concerned with her own thoughts to wonder where the source of that comfortable aroma o£ tobacco lay—it was to her just a part of the atmosphere of books and quiet and leather chairs which she always associated with her memories of her father. Revelling in the sensation of being alone, as she blissfully fancied herself to be, she wandered about looking at the titles of the books, now and again taking down a volume and turning the leaves. Here she chanced upon a delightful old edition of "Pickwick Papers," bound in worn leather, there a copy of the "Vicar of Wakefield," with yellowed pages, and quaint, old-fashioned print, and the sight of these old friends, associated as they were with the happiest and most tranquil hours of her life, soothed to a certain extent her feelings which had been cruelly wounded by the conversation she had overheard.

But she was still sore and angry. Still holding the "Vicar of Wakefield" in her hand, she stood, staring absently into the fire.

"So that's what people will be saying about us—that we are pushing and scheming, and—and trying to make friends just to use them for our advantage," she thought bitterly, recalling Mrs. Porterbridge's unfriendly little insinuation.

Sensitive and proud as she was, that unfinished remark, made in the cold, hard tone of a woman who, judging the whole world by herself, credited everyone alike with self-interested and worldly motives, had inflicted a wound that would be long in healing. It was not indeed on her own account that she resented it so bitterly, but because of her mother and Alma, whose actions, she knew, could be so misinterpreted and ascribed to quite false motives. She knew, too, less by experience than by instinct, that beneath all the pleasures and gaiety which Alma craved so eagerly, would flow that bitter undercurrent of cynical comment made by people who had so long been self-seeking that they could not believe in the artlessness of a young girl's simple thirst for enjoyment.

Busy with these thoughts, a little strange and mature perhaps for her age, she was quite unconscious of two interesting facts. First, that from an armchair just beyond the radius of the lamplight, the source of the cigarette smoke was regarding her with mingled astonishment and approval, and, second, that she herself was making a very charming picture as she stood in the deep, mellow glow of the firelight.

A small man, with a kind, whimsical, clever face, was looking at her with a pair of singularly bright brown eyes—eyes which had the direct, unwavering, gentle gaze of a person who has the gift of reading the meaning of faces and expressions to which others are blind. Indeed, so clearly had he guessed the trend of the thoughts which underlay the seriousness of Nancy's sensitive face, that he felt almost like an eavesdropper. Suddenly she jerked her head and saw him. He stood up.

"I—I beg your pardon," he apologized, still with the sensation of having heard something that had not been meant for his ears. "You didn't know I was here, and I was rather at a loss as to how I should break it to you."

Nancy had flushed to the edge of her hair.

"That—that's all right," she stammered. "I—I mean, I should apologize to you. You were reading." She began to move away toward the door again, but he stopped her hastily.

"You mustn't go, and you mustn't for a moment think you've disturbed me. I haven't any business to be in here anyway, because I think I was invited to entertain and be entertained like any respectable guest. I don't know what they do to unmannerly, unsociable creatures who sneak off for a book and a smoke from the scenes of revelry, but I'm guilty, and deserve to die the death, or whatever it is."

Nancy laughed. When he talked he had a droll way of wrinkling up his forehead, and then suddenly breaking into a beaming, mischievous grin, like a schoolboy.

"I'm guilty, too."

"Yes,—and really ever so much more so than I am; because you're deliberately robbing at least ninety-nine per cent. of the guests of a part of their evening's pleasure, whereas, my absence is of so little importance one way or the other that, although I've been in here the better part of an hour already, there hasn't been even a whimper of protest. It's been decidedly injurious to my amour-propre. I had hoped, when you came in, that you had been sent by the unanimous vote of all present to request my immediate return to the regions of festivity. I was prepared to be coy—but not adamantine. Imagine my chagrin and dismay when it gradually dawned on me not only that you hadn't come for any such flattering purpose, but even that you hadn't the smallest notion I was here. As far as you were concerned I was of less significance than a cockroach."

"But that's not bad—a cockroach would be of awful significance to me," said Nancy, with a laugh.

"We have caught each other red-handed in an overwhelming breach of manners," continued he, severely. "But then, look at it this way—here we are, each having a good time in our own way. Now it seems to me that a hostess could ask no more of a guest than that he find his own entertainment—if he seeks it by ambling out into the garden to weed up wild onions, why, well and good——"

"You are only trying to dazzle me with a false argument in self-defense," said Nancy.

"You should be grateful to me for furnishing such a good one, since you've need of one yourself, ma'am. But if you don't like it, why then I shall change my mind. As a matter of fact, the idea of dancing has suddenly appealed to me very strongly—since Providence has at last provided me with a—well, with a more delightful partner than I should have dared to hope for. And they are playing a very charming waltz. Will you dance with me?"

He made a graceful little old-fashioned bow, and offered her his arm. Then he smiled.

"I—I haven't introduced myself yet. Do you mind? I should have done it in the beginning, but I couldn't think of any graceful way of hinting at my name, and it's so horribly clumsy just to say pointblank, 'My name's George Arnold. What's yours?'"

"But there isn't any other way," answered Nancy, a little shyly, but laughing, too, "unless we both go to Mrs. Porterbridge and ask her to introduce us. My name is Nancy—Anne Prescott."

"There now—it's perfectly simple, isn't it? I never could understand why there should be any formal to-do about telling two people each other's names. Do you know, the very minute you came in—perhaps it was from the way you looked at those dear old books—I felt as if—well, as if we ought to be friends. You are fond of them, aren't you—of books—really fond of them?"

"I love those old, shabby ones. They—they looked so very friendly."

He stole a keen glance at her face, and smiled gently at what it told him. Then, as she clung to his arm, he guided her dexterously through the crowd to the dancing floor.

After that first dance the whole evening changed for Nancy. She had half doubted that her companion would be a good dancer, but in two moments that doubt was routed. Gliding smoothly, weightlessly as if to the gentle rhythm of a wave, they circled through the moving swarm of dancers; Nancy's cheeks flushing like two poppies and her eyes glistening with the exhilaration of the music. Her timidity had left her; she felt warm, vivacious and attractive, and it seemed perfectly natural that after that first waltz she had partners for every dance.

Mr. Arnold danced with no one else. When other partners claimed her, he retired to the doorway, and stood with his arms folded, surveying the scene with his whimsical, absent-minded smile; but evidently he regarded it as his right to have each waltz with her.

"My aunt has ordered me to present you to her," he said, when he had at length led her into a corner for an ice, and a moment's chat. "For some reason she has evidently taken a great fancy to you at sight, and she is giving me no peace. She is a very peremptory and badly spoiled old lady, but it's impossible to resist her. I told her that she might frighten you to death, and that then you'd blame me."

"You didn't!" cried Nancy, horrified.

"Indeed I did. I've had the experience before—and I told her that I'd be hanged if I assumed the responsibility of surrendering any unsuspecting person into her clutches without giving them fair warning. But, seriously, she is a very dear lady,—though an eccentric one—and she has been saying extremely nice things about you. Besides—she asked me to tell you that she knew your father, and that she loved him long before you were born."

Something in his softened, gentle tone went to Nancy's heart. She put down her ice.

"Will you take me now? I think I know—I mean I've seen your aunt already."

"She is a very remarkable person. She can be more terrifying—and more tender, than any woman in the world. Utterly fearless, something of a tyrant—possibly because she has never been denied anything she wanted in her life. She simply doesn't accept denials. If she had been a man she might have been a Pitt, or a Napoleon. As she is, she is a mixture of Queen Elizabeth—and Queen Victoria."

The amazing individual, described by this brief biographical preface, who was still enthroned on the coquettish little French couch, and who was now consuming a pink ice with naïve relish, was indeed the old lady in purple—otherwise, Miss Elizabeth Bancroft, of Lowry House (for some reason she had always been given this somewhat English style of designation; possibly because she was the last of her name to be identified with the magnificent collections for which Lowry House, the American roof-tree of aristocratic English colonists, had been famous for more than a hundred years).

As Nancy stood before her, she looked up at the girl keenly, her little blue eyes diminished in size by the thick lenses of her pince-nez. Then she handed her ice to Mr. Arnold without even glancing at him, and held out both her plump white hands to Nancy. Her whole face softened, with the dimpling, comfortable smile of a motherly old nurse.

"Oh, my dear child—if you were only a boy I could believe you were George again—my George, your father—not this young rascal. Come, sit down beside me. I shan't keep you long. Have you been having a good time, my dear?"

She was not a terrible old lady at all. On the contrary, with wonderful skill, with cosy, affectionate little ways, with her jolly laugh, and her droll stories, she had succeeded in less time than it takes to tell in completely winning Nancy to her. And somehow, although she appeared to be doing all the talking herself, although she touched so lightly and so adroitly that she hardly seemed to touch at all on any topic that was delicately personal to the girl, she had managed within a brief five minutes to glean a hundred little facts, which, by piecing together in her keen old mind, gave her more knowledge concerning the Prescotts than another person could have come by in a week's diligent pumping.

"George, my dear——"

"Yes, Aunt Eliza."

"Oh, nothing. I wish to goodness you were a woman. It just occurred to me that you can't possibly understand what I was going to say to you, so never mind about listening to me. Smoke, if you want to, and let me think in peace."

"Very well." From Mr. Arnold's docile submissiveness it might be surmised that he, too, wanted to think in peace. Miss Bancroft's lumbering, impressive coupé rumbled along over the wet roads toward Lowry House; its two occupants buried in that mood of silence which only two very sympathetic beings know how to respect. Presently Miss Bancroft burst out: