You can spare a day or two to give time for that, can't you?"
Nan was sorry to hear the pleading tone, it was so unlike her aunt's
usually severe manner, and answered quickly that she should be very
glad to make the little excursion. Mr. Brown had asked her to come to
the farm one day near the beginning of her visit.
"You must say this is home, if you can," said Miss Prince, who was a
good deal excited and shaken that morning, "and not think of yourself
as a visitor any more. There are a great many things I hope you can
understand, even if I have left them unsaid. It has really seemed more
like home since you have been here, and less like a lodging. I wonder
how I--When did you see Mr. Brown? I did not know you had ever spoken
to him."
"It was some time ago," the girl answered. "I was in the kitchen, and
he came to the door. He seemed very glad to see me," and Nan hesitated
a moment. "He said I was like my father."
"Yes, indeed," responded Miss Prince, drearily; and the thought seized
her that it was very strange that the same mistaken persistency should
show itself in father and child in exactly opposite ways. If Nan would
only care as much for marrying George Gerry, as her father had for
marrying his wretched wife! It seemed more and more impossible that
this little lady should be the daughter of such a woman; how dismayed
the girl would be if she could be shown her mother's nature as Miss
Prince remembered it. Alas! this was already a sorrow which no vision
of the reality could deepen, and the frank words of the Oldfields
country people about the bad Thachers had not been spoken fruitlessly
in the ears of their last descendant.
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