. Perhaps if I had gone to see those people, and told them
all I felt, they would have pitied me, and not blamed me, and so
everything would have been better, but it is too late now. I don't
know what sort of a person my own niece is, and I wish that I need
never find out, but I shall try to do my duty."

The captain was tender-hearted, and seemed quite unmanned, but he gave
his eyes a sudden stroke with his hand and turned to go away. "You
will command me, Nancy, if I can be of service to you?" he inquired,
and his cousin bowed her head in assent. It was, indeed, a dismal hour
of the family history.

For some time Miss Prince did not move, except as she watched Captain
Parish cross the street and take his leisurely way along the uneven
pavement. She was almost tempted to call him back, and felt as if he
were the last friend she had in the world, and was leaving her
forever. But after she had allowed the worst of the miserable shock to
spend itself, she summoned the stern energy for which she was famous,
and going with slower steps than usual to the next room, she unlocked
the desk of the ponderous secretary and seated herself to write.
Before many minutes had passed the letter was folded, and sealed, and
addressed, and the next evening Nan was reading it at Oldfields. She
was grateful for being asked to come on the 5th of June to Dunport,
and to stay a few days if it were convenient, and yet her heart fell
because there was not a sign of welcome or affection in the stately
fashioning of the note. It had been hardly wise to expect it under the
circumstances, the girl assured herself later, and at any rate it was
kind in her aunt to answer her own short letter so soon.

XV

HOSTESS AND GUEST

Nan had, indeed, resolved to take a most important step. She had
always dismissed the idea of having any communication with her aunt
most contemptuously when she had first understood their unhappy
position toward each other; but during the last year or two she had
been forced to look at the relationship from a wider point of view.
Dr. Leslie protested that he had always treated Miss Prince in a
perfectly fair and friendly manner, and that if she had chosen to show
no interest in her only niece, nobody was to blame but herself. But
Nan pleaded that her aunt was no longer young; that she might be
wishing that a reconciliation could be brought about; the very fact of
her having constantly sent the yearly allowance in spit