Once she had stopped him as he drove by to give him a little
handful of blue violets, and this had gone straight to his heart, for
he had been made too great a bugbear to most children to look for any
favor at their hands. He always liked to see her come into church on
Sundays, her steps growing quicker and surer as her good grandmother's
became more feeble. The doctor was a lonely man in spite of his many
friends, and he found himself watching for the little brown face that,
half-way across the old meeting-house, would turn round to look for
him more than once during the service. At first there was only the top
of little Nan Prince's prim best bonnet or hood to be seen, unless it
was when she stood up in prayer-time, but soon the bright eyes rose
like stars above the horizon of the pew railing, and next there was
the whole well-poised little head, and the tall child was possessed by
a sense of propriety, and only ventured one or two discreet glances at
her old friend.
The office of guardian was not one of great tasks or of many duties,
though the child's aunt had insisted upon making an allowance for her
of a hundred dollars a year, and this was duly acknowledged and placed
to its owner's credit in the savings bank of the next town. Her
grandmother Thacher always refused to spend it, saying proudly that
she had never been beholden to Miss Prince and she never meant to be,
and while she lived the aunt and niece should be kept apart. She would
not say that her daughter had never been at fault, but it was through
the Princes all the trouble of her life had come.
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