She paused to look vacantly into the wall. "Sometimes, you know, I seem
to wake up with a clear mind--but the day clouds it. We shouldn't
believe so many falsities, Aunt Bell, if they didn't pinch our brains
into it at a tender age. I should know Allan through and through at a
glance to-day, if I met him for the first time; but he kneaded my poor
girl's brain this way and that, till I'd have been done for, Aunt Bell,
if some one else hadn't kneaded and patted it into other ways, so that
little memories come back and stay with me--little bits of sweetness and
genuineness--of _realness_, Aunt Bell."

"Nance, you are morbid--and I think you're wrong to go up there to be
alone with your sick fancies--why are you going, Nance?"

"Aunt Bell, can I really trust you not to betray me? Will you promise to
keep the secret if I actually tell you?"

Aunt Bell looked at once important and trustworthy, yet of an
incorruptible propriety.

"I'm sure, my dear, you would not ask me to keep secret anything that
your husband would be--"

"Dear, no! You can keep mum with a spotless conscience."

"Of course; I was sure of that!"

"What a fraud you are, Aunt Bell--you weren't sure at all--but I shall
disappoint you. Now my reason--" She came close and spoke low--"My
reason for going to Edom, whatever it is, is so utterly silly that I