Lord, an angry, resentful,
little creature weighed down by a fierce sense of injury. Her gloomy
young heart was visited by frequent storms and she looked as unlovable
as she was unloved. But Nancy Carey, never shy, and as eager to give
herself as people always are who are born and bred in joy and love,
Nancy hopped out of Mother Carey's warm nest one day, and fixing her
bright eyes and sunny, hopeful glance on the lonely, frowning little
neighbor, stretched out her hand in friendship. Olive's mournful black
eyes met Nancy's sparkling brown ones. Her hand, so marvellously full of
skill, had never held another's, and she was desperately self-conscious;
but magnetism flowed from Nancy as electric currents from a battery. She
drew Olive to her by some unknown force and held her fast, not realizing
at the moment that she was getting as much as she gave.

The first interview, purely a casual one, took place on the edge of the
lily pond where Olive was sketching frogs, and where Nancy went for
cat-o'-nine-tails. It proved to be a long and intimate talk, and when
Mrs. Carey looked out of her bedroom window just before supper she saw,
at the pasture bars, the two girls with their arms round each other and
their cheeks close together. Nancy's curly chestnut crop shone in the
sun, and Olive's thick black plaits looked blacker by contrast. Suddenly
she flung her arms round Nancy's neck, and with a sob darted under the
bars and across the fields without a backward glance.

A few moments later Nancy entered her mother's room, her arms filled
with treasures from the woods and fields. "Oh, Motherdy!" she cried,
laying down her flowers and taking off her hat. "I've found such a
friend; a real understanding friend; and it's the girl from the House of
Lords. She's wonderful! More wonderful than anybody we've ever seen
anywhere, and she draws better than the teacher in Charlestown! She's
older than I am, but so tiny and sad and shy that she seems like a
child. Oh, mother, there's always so much spare room in your heart,--for
you took in Julia and yet we never felt the difference,--won't you make
a place for Olive? There never was anybody needed you so much as she
does,--never."

Have you ever lifted a stone and seen the pale, yellow, stunted shoots
of grass under it? And have you gone next day and next, and watched the
little blades shoot upward, spread themselves with delight, grow green
and wax strong; and finally, warm with the sun,