"Now for good news. My work over here is done. As soon as I can get passage I will sail for home, I can't think of anything else. I thought I'd spend my unexpected holiday nosing around in the places where I've always wanted to go—but I can't. I'm too impatient to enjoy anything. So I shall camp on the doorstep of the G. H. Q. Office until word of my sailing comes. I suppose you are at the apartment under Mrs. Finnegan's loving eye. When I return we'll run off to the seashore or mountains for a few weeks."
"Dear, dear thoughtful Daddy—nice, old, preachy Daddy—with your sugar-coated sermons in little pellets, all easy to swallow!" cried Nancy, laughing, then suddenly a sob choked her, another and then another.
"It's almost dreadful to have Daddy have just me. What if he is disappointed when he sees me! What if he is—angry—at what I've done!"
For the first time this possibility crossed her mind {134} leaving a terrible fear. Impulsive Nancy had often displeased her father, but always the most trivial offence had troubled her deeply. Her father had such an aversion to the smallest departure from truth! And wasn't she really acting a lie?
For the next few moments poor Nancy sorely needed the support of Anne's convincing arguments! Remorse of the most torturing kind swept her.
And she had dared to judge Miss Sabrina's standards of honor and justice!
"I'll go away," she cried, aloud. "I'll go straight back to Mrs. Finnegan's where I belong."
But this determination, soothing at it was, brought added problems. Nancy's brow wrinkled with a deep frown of perplexity. It would not be fair to Anne to just run away—she'd have to give some explanation to Miss Sabrina and Miss Milly and B'lindy, and even Webb. And just now, in her present mood, anything but the absolute truth seemed abhorrent to her.
Then she thought of Aunt Milly—dear little Aunt Milly. She was a different creature now from the pale little woman Nancy had first seen on the couch in the darkened room. Each day, when she did not go to the orchard, she spent in the sitting room or on the hollyhock porch, knitting and helping in little household tasks. And Nancy knew by the wistful glance that met hers when she came and went, how Aunt Milly hungered for her company. Nancy had told herself that it was because she was young and that she seemed, perhaps, like what Aunt Milly had wanted to be—before the dreadful accident.
What would Aunt Milly's life be if she went suddenly out of it?