ovincialism in her father's sister. The doctor had only
seen Miss Prince once many years before, but he had known her again
with instinctive certainty, and Nan did not guess, though she was most
grateful for it, why he reached for her hand, and held it fast as they
walked together, just as he always used to do when she was a little
girl. She was not yet fully grown, and she never suspected the sudden
thrill of dread, and consciousness of the great battle of life which
she must soon begin to fight, which all at once chilled the doctor's
heart. "It's a cold world, a cold world," he had said to himself.
"Only one thing will help her through safely, and that is her
usefulness. She shall never be either a thief or a beggar of the
world's favor if I can have my wish." And Nan, holding his hand with
her warm, soft, childish one, looked up in his face, all unconscious
that he thought with pity how unaware she was of the years to come,
and of their difference to this sunshine holiday. "And yet I never was
so happy at her age as I am this summer," the doctor told himself by
way of cheer.

They paid some visits together to Dr. Leslie's much-neglected friends,
and it was interesting to see how, for the child's sake, he resumed
his place among these acquaintances to whom he had long been linked
either personally in times past, or by family ties. He was sometimes
reproached for his love of seclusion and cordially welcomed back to
his old relations, but as often found it impossible to restore
anything but a formal intercourse of a most temporary nature. The
people for whom he cared most, all seemed attracted to his young ward,
and he noted this with pleasure, though he had not recognized the fact
that he had been, for the moment, basely uncertain whether his
judgment of her worth would be confirmed. He laughed at the
insinuation that he had made a hermit or an outlaw of himself; he
would have been still more amused to hear one of his old friends say
that this was the reason they had seen so little of him in late years,
and that it was a shame that a man of his talent and many values to
the world should be hiding his light under the Oldfields bushel, and
all for the sake of bringing up this child. As for Nan, she had little
to say, but kept her eyes and ears wide open, and behaved herself
discreetly. She had ceased to belong only to the village she had left;
in these days she became a citizen of the world at large. Her horizon
had sud