The Four Corners. Blanchard Amy Ella

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СКАЧАТЬ care to know?" Nan paused before she said hesitatingly, "Would it make her very mad if I sent a kiss to her?"

      "Dear child, no. It would make her very glad, and would help to ease her sad heart, I am sure."

      "Then I'll do it. Take this, please." Nan pressed a hearty kiss on the lady's lips. "Then," she added: "I must tell mother, you know."

      "Of course. You may tell her day after to-morrow that you met your godmother."

      "My fairy godmother."

      "As you like. Now you must run along. Good-bye till we meet again. One more kiss, Nannie, for your Aunt Helen."

      "Oh, yes, I always forget her. I was so little when I last saw her, you know. But I'll send her a kiss if you want me to. Good-bye, dear fairy godmother. Ask the queen of the fairies to send you this way soon again."

      The candle-lighted room, the little white-haired figure, the shrouded portrait all seemed unreal as Nan stepped out again into the bright sunlight. She longed to tell her mother all about it, but she reflected that the secret was not all her own and determined to be silent till the time was up. Only one question did she ask and the answer almost made her betray herself. "Mother," she said when her mother came to say good-night, "who was my godmother?"

      "Your Aunt Helen," was the reply.

      Nan sat straight up in bed her eyes wide with surprise. "Why, why," she stammered, but she immediately nestled down again.

      "Did you never know that?" asked her mother.

      "If I did I forgot," replied Nan, and she lay awake for a long time thinking of the strangeness of the morning's experience. She could scarcely wait till the time rolled around and brought her to the day when she could tell her mother the story of her secret meeting. It seemed to her that since the day before yesterday her mental self had grown prodigiously. Mary Lee, a year and a half younger seemed now such a child, although heretofore she had been considered the more mature. Once in a while the two had discussed their grandmother and the Corner family, but Mary Lee was not greatly interested in the subject and had concluded the conversation by saying: "I don't care a picayune where she is or what she thinks. She has never done anything for me and she might as well be out of the world as in it, as far as we are concerned. I'm never going to bother my head about her, and I don't see why you want to, Nan."

      This crushing indifference satisfied Nan that Mary Lee was not to be confided in when the silent house at Uplands, like a magnet, drew Nan toward it, and she was rather glad that she did not want to tell any one but her mother, for had a sympathetic spirit been ready to hear the secret would have been hard to keep.

      When the eventful day came she followed Mrs. Corner from dining-room to pantry and from pantry to kitchen waiting for a chance to give her confidence. "When shall you be through, mother?" she asked. "It seems as if you had so much more than usual to do this morning."

      "No more, than always," returned her mother. "Why are you so impatiently following me up, Nan? What is it? Can't you tell me now?"

      Nan glanced at Mitty and the washerwoman who were eating their breakfast. "It's a secret," she said in a low tone, "a very important secret."

      Mrs. Corner smiled. Nan's secrets were not usually of great importance except in her own estimation. "Well, I shall be in my room as soon as I give out the meal and sugar; you can come to me then, if you can't tell me here. Suppose you pass the time away in looking up Jack. It is about time she was getting into mischief again. She always chooses Monday morning for some sort of escapade; I suppose keeping bottled up over Sunday is too much for her."

      "I'll go see where she is," agreed Nan. "She won't be painting the fence this time, I know."

      Jack was discovered before a tub in the wash house. In the absence of Ginny, the washerwoman, at breakfast, she had seized the opportunity of taking her place and was about to plunge her best muslin frock into the water with the stockings and underwear when Nan came upon her. "Jacqueline Corner, what are you up to now?" cried Nan, snatching the frock from her.

      "I'm just helping Ginny to wash," replied Jack with her usual air of injured innocence when discovered under such circumstances.

      "You were just helping Landy when you wasted the paint and ruined your blue frock," said Nan sarcastically. "Walk yourself right out of here. Ginny is perfectly capable of doing the washing without your assistance. Besides that lawn frock doesn't go in with black stockings; a pretty mess you'd make of it. Ginny won't thank you for mixing up her wash when she's sorted it all out. Try your energies upon something you know about, young lady."

      Jack flung herself away. "You're always saying I mustn't do this and I mustn't do that," she complained. "You're a regular old cross-patch. You're not my mother to order me around."

      "Mother sent me to see after you, so there," returned Nan. "I'm next to mother, too, for I'm next oldest. Where's Jean?"

      "I don't know and I don't care," returned Jack, sullenly.

      "Who's a cross-patch now? Here comes Ginny; you'd better make tracks out of here."

      Jack fled and Nan returned to the house to find her mother ready to sit down to her sewing. The girl carefully shut the door and then established herself on an ottoman near her mother. "What does my Aunt Helen look like?" she asked abruptly.

      Her mother looked up in surprise. "That's the second time lately that you have asked me about your Aunt Helen. Why this sudden interest, Nannie?"

      "I'll tell you presently. It's part of the secret."

      "Oh, it is. Well then, Helen has dark hair and blue eyes, a fair skin and little hands and feet. She is quite small, not much taller than you."

      "It all sounds right," said Nan reflectively, "except the hair. Is she quite old, mother?"

      "She is younger than I."

      "Oh, then, of course, it is some one else, only my little lady has a very young smile. Maybe she isn't so awfully old. Could any one younger than you have real white hair, mother?"

      "Why, yes, I have seen persons much younger whose hair had turned quite gray. Sometimes hair turns gray quite suddenly from illness or grief or trouble."

      "Could Aunt Helen's hair be gray by this time?"

      "It could be, though it was dark when I saw her last."

      Nan pondered upon this and then said: "Well, anyhow, whoever it was, she told me I was to tell you that she was my godmother. Did I have two godmothers?"

      "Yes, but I was one. What is all this about? Whom have you seen, and where did you see her?"

      Nan launched forth into her story, her mother listening so attentively that her sewing lay untouched in her lap. When Nan had concluded, Mrs. Corner picked up her work again, but she was so agitated that she was unable to thread her needle.

      "Who was she? Who was she?" queried Nan.

      "Your Aunt Helen, without doubt."

      "But I thought she was in Europe with my grandmother."

      "So I thought. She evidently came over on some matter of business, leaving your grandmother there."

      "Are you sorry I saw her, mother?" asked Nan, leaning her elbows on her mother's lap and looking up into her face. "I told her I ought not to go to Uplands because you don't like us to. Are you sorry СКАЧАТЬ