For whether
Nan liked Miss Prince remained to be proved, though nobody in their
senses could doubt that Miss Prince would be proud of her niece.
It was not until after Nan had fairly started that she began to feel
at all dismayed. Perhaps she had done a foolish thing after all;
Marilla had not approved the adventure, while at the last minute Nan
had become suspicious that the doctor had made another plan, though
she contented herself with the remembrance of perfect freedom to go
home whenever she chose. She told herself grimly that if her aunt died
she should be thankful that she had done this duty; yet when, after a
journey of several hours, she knew that Dunport was the next station,
her heart began to beat in a ridiculous manner. It was unlike any
experience that had ever come to her, and she felt strangely unequal
to the occasion. Long ago she had laughed at her early romances of her
grand Dunport belongings, but the memory of them lingered still, in
spite of this commonplace approach to their realities, and she looked
eagerly at the groups of people at the railway station with a great
hope and almost certainty that she should find her aunt waiting to
meet her. There was no such good fortune, which was a chill at the
outset to the somewhat tired young traveler, but she beckoned a driver
whom she had just ignored, and presently was shut into a somewhat
antiquated public carriage and on her way to Miss Prince's house.
So this was Dunport, and in these very streets her father had played,
and here her mother had become deeper and deeper involved in the
suffering and tragedy which had clouded the end of her short life.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204