"But, Nancy," I said, "I can't expect you to go away out there
with me. It's too much to ask of you."

"And where else would I be going?" demanded Nancy in genuine
astonishment. "How under the canopy could you keep house without
me? I'm not going to trust you to the mercies of a yellow Chinee
with a pig-tail. Where you go I go, Miss Charlotte, and there's
an end of it."

I was very glad, for I hated to think of parting with Nancy even
to go with Cecil. As for the blank book, I haven't told my
husband about it yet, but I mean to some day. And I've
subscribed for the _Weekly Advocate_ again.



III. HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER

"We must invite your Aunt Jane, of course," said Mrs. Spencer.

Rachel made a protesting movement with her large, white, shapely
hands--hands which were so different from the thin, dark, twisted
ones folded on the table opposite her. The difference was not
caused by hard work or the lack of it; Rachel had worked hard all
her life. It was a difference inherent in temperament. The
Spencers, no matter what they did, or how hard they labored, all
had plump, smooth, white hands, with firm, supple fingers; the
Chiswicks, even those who toiled not, neither did they spin, had
hard, knotted, twisted ones. Moreover, the contrast went deeper