and not you.'
'It's wicked to take such comfort,' said he, 'but I guess I can't help
taking it a mite. Nannie is so very comforting and pleasant to have
around.'"

"He certainly was a nice man," said Mrs. Clymer. "Do you remember him
beaming at Nannie's graduation? I thought I should be bored, but I
wasn't; and you, my dear, were a little drama of delight by yourself, so
scared when she began, and so radiant presently; and darting such
furious glances at Elsa Clarke."

"Well," retorted Mrs. Curtis, "wasn't she whispering all through the
essay to a boy she had with her! But she was on the stage afterward,
before any of us, and she had sent Nannie a most impressive and
expensive bouquet; and she was hugging her and making joyful noise over
her when my father and I came up. Father paid her the prettiest of
compliments and called her Miss Nannie. Her own father and her aunt and
Ned stood by, with Oscar, who had come in from the country for this
important occasion. Mr. Marsh did not say a word. But I never knew
before how many different kinds of smiles a man could smile. And
somehow, after that evening, although Nannie was so little affected by
the glamour of it all, I was provoked with her; somehow, she was more
like her old gay self with me. Why do you suppose, Mrs. Atherton?"

"I suppose," ventured the Southerner, smiling, "because she felt that
her little triumph (no doubt she overvalued it, in spite of the level
head you give her); she felt it made her a little better worth your
friendship. But--what happened next? You went to college?"

"Yes, I went; and we had to have that odious little Elsa with us,
because she was going, too. I was most dolefully homesick; and oh, how I
missed Nannie! I wrote her, if I weren't so afraid of the ferocious
cabmen who roared so at one, I should run away, and it was all her
fault--"

"Your father did want--" Mrs. Curtis cut Mrs. Clymer's sentence off with
a quick "Ah, they wouldn't accept; they were quite as proud as we.
However, the time dragged itself away, and I went home for the Christmas
holidays. I found Nannie in very different circumstances, but quite as
cheerful. She was working in the factory, and earning good wages, and
she had all sorts of racy experiences with human nature to relate. How
the whole family hung on my college stories! And Oscar was doing well,
and becoming cheerful, and they could all talk proudly about him again!
They comforted me as much as my own peopl