The second morning after this unexpected interview was sunshiny
enough, and as cold as January could make it. Tom Aldis, being young
and gay, was apt to keep late hours at this season, and the night
before had been the night of a Harvard assembly. He was the
kindest-hearted fellow in the world, but it was impossible not to feel
a little glum and sleepy as he hurried toward the Missionary Building.
The sharp air had urged uncle Ezra's white horse beyond his customary
pace, so that the old sleigh was already waiting, and uncle Ezra
himself was flapping his chilled arms and tramping to and fro
impatiently.
"Cold mornin'!" he said. "She's waitin' for you in there. I wanted to
be sure you'd come. Now I'll be off. I've got them pears well covered,
but I expect they may be touched. Nancy counted on comin', an' I'd
just as soon she'd have a nice time. Her cousin's folks'll see her to
the depot," he added as he drove away, and Tom nodded reassuringly
from the bookstore door.
Nancy looked up eagerly from beside a counter full of gayly bound
books, and gave him a speechless and grateful good-morning.
"I'm getting some presents for the little boys," she informed him.
"They're great hands to read. This one's all about birds, for Sam, and
I don't know but this Life o' Napoleon'll please Asa as much as
anything. When I waked up this morning I felt homesick. I couldn't see
anything out o' the window that I knew. I'm a real home body."
"I should like to send the boys a present, myself," said Tom. "What do
you think about jack-knives?"
"Asa'd rather have readin' matter; he ain't got the use for a knife
that some boys have. Why, you're real good!" said Nancy.
"And your mother,--can't I send her something that she would like?"
asked Tom kindly.
"She liked all those things that you and Mr. Carew sent at Christmas
time. We had the loveliest time opening the bundles. You oughtn't to
think o' doing anything more. I wish you'd help me pick out a nice
large-print Bible for grandma; she's always wishing for a large-print
Bible, and her eyes fail her a good deal."
Tom Aldis was not very fond of shopping, but this pious errand did not
displease him in Nancy's company. A few minutes later, when they went
out into the cold street, he felt warm and cheerful, and carried under
his arm the flat parcel which held a large-print copy of the
Scriptures and the little boys' books. Seeing Nancy again seemed to
carry his thoughts back to East Rodney, as if he had been born and
brought up there as well as she. The society and scenery of the little
coast town were so simple and definite in their elements that one
easily acquired a feeling of citizenship; it was like becoming
acquainted with a friendly individual. Tom had an intimate knowledge,
gained from several weeks' residence, with Nancy's whole world.
The long morning stretched before them like a morning in far Cathay,
and they stepped off down the street toward the Old South Church,
which had been omitted from uncle Ezra's scheme of entertainment by
reason of difficulty in leaving the horse. The discovery that the door
would not be open for nearly another hour only involved a longer walk
among the city streets, and the asking and answering of many questions
about the East Rodney neighbors, and the late autumn hunting and
fishing which, with some land interests of his father's, had first
drawn Tom to that part of the country. He had known enough of the rest
of the world to appreciate the little community of fishermen-farmers,
and while his friend Carew was but a complaining captive with a
sprained ankle, Tom Aldis entered into the spirit of rural life with
great zest; in fact he now remembered some boyish gallantries with a
little uneasiness, and looked to Nancy to befriend him. It was easy
for a man of twenty-two to arrive at an almost brotherly affection for
such a person as Nancy; she was so discreet and so sincerely
affectionate.
Nancy looked up at him once or twice as they walked along, and her
face glowed with happy pride. "I'd just like to have Addie Porter see
me now!" she exclaimed, and gave Tom a straightforward look to which
he promptly responded.
"Why?" he asked.
Nancy drew a long breath of relief, and began to smile.
"Oh, nothing," she answered; "only she kept telling me that you
wouldn't have much of anything to say to me, if I should happen to
meet you anywhere up to Boston. I knew better. I guess you're all
right, aren't you, about that?" She spoke with sudden impulse, but
there was something in her tone that made Tom blush a little.
"Why, yes," he answered. "What do you mean, Nancy?"
"We won't talk about it now while we're full of seeing things, but
I've got something to say by and by," said the girl soberly.
"You're very mysterious," protested Tom, taking the bundle under his
other arm, and piloting her carefully across the street.
Nancy said no more. The town was more interesting now that it seemed
to have waked up, and her eyes were too busy. Everything proved
delightful that day, from the recognition of business signs familiar
to her through newspaper advertisements, to the Great Organ, and the
thrill which her patriotic heart experienced in a second visit to
Faneuil Hall. They found the weather so mild that they pushed on to
Charlestown, and went to the top of the monument, which Tom had not
done since he was a very small boy. After this they saw what else they
could of historic Boston, on the fleetest and lightest of feet, and
talked all the way, until they were suddenly astonished to hear the
bells in all the steeples ring at noon.
"Oh dear, my nice mornin' 's all gone," said Nancy regretfully. "I
never had such a beautiful time in all my life!"
She looked quite beautiful herself as she spoke: her eyes shone with
lovely light and feeling, and her cheeks were bright with color like a
fresh-bloomed rose, but for the first time that day she was wistful
and sorry.
"Oh, you needn't go back yet!" said Tom. "I've nothing in the world to
do."
"Uncle Ezra thought I'd better go up to cousin Snow's in Revere
Street. I'm afraid she'll be all through dinner, but never mind. They
thought I'd better go there on mother's account; it's her cousin, but
I never saw her, at least not since I can remember. They won't like it
if I don't, you know; it wouldn't be very polite."
"All right," assented Tom with dignity. "I'll take you there at once:
perhaps we can catch a car or something."
"I'm ashamed to ask for anything more when you've been so kind," said
Nancy, after a few moments of anxious silence. "I don't know that you
can think of any good chance, but I'd give a great deal if I could
only go somewhere and see some pretty dancing. You know I'm always
dreamin' and dreamin' about pretty dancing!" and she looked eagerly at
Tom to see what he would say. "It must be goin' on somewhere in
Boston," she went on with pleading eyes. "Could you ask somebody? They
said at uncle Ezra's that if cousin Abby Snow wanted me to remain
until to-morrow it might be just as well to stay; she used to be so
well acquainted with mother. And so I thought--I might get some nice
chance to look on."
"To see some dancing," repeated Tom, mindful of his own gay evening
the night before, and of others to come, and the general impossibility
of Nancy's finding the happiness she sought. He never had been so
confronted by social barriers. As for Nancy's dancing at East Rodney,
in the schoolhouse hall or in Jacob Parker's new barn, it had been one
of the most ideal things he had ever known in his life; it would be
hard to find elsewhere such grace as hers. In seaboard towns one often
comes upon strange foreign inheritances, and the soul of a Spanish
grandmother might still survive in Nancy, as far as her light feet
were concerned. She danced like a flower in the wind. She made you
feel light of foot yourself, as if you were whirling and blowing and
waving through the air; as if you could go out dancing and dancing
over the deep blue sea water of the bay, and find floor enough to
touch and whirl upon. But Nancy had always seemed to take her gifts
for granted; she had the simplicity of genius. "I can't say now, but I
am sure to find out," said Tom Aldis definitely. "I'll try to make
some sort of plan for you. I wish we could have another dance,
ourselves."
"Oh, not now," answered Nancy sensibly. "It's knowing 'most all the
people that makes a party pleasant."
"My aunt would have asked you to come to luncheon to-day, but she had
to go out of town, and was afraid of not getting back in season. She
would like to see you very much. You see, I'm only a bachelor in
lodgings, this winter," explained Tom bravely.
"You've been just as good as you could be. I know all about Boston
now, almost as if I lived here. I should like to see the inside of one
of those big houses," she added softly; "they all look so noble as you
go by. I think it was very polite of your aunt; you must thank her,
Mr. Aldis."
It seemed to Tom as if his companion were building most glorious
pleasure out of very commonplace materials. All the morning she had
been as gay and busy as a brook.
By the middle of the afternoon he knocked again at cousin Snow's door
in Revere Street, and delivered an invitation. Mrs. Annesley, his
aunt, and the kindest of women, would take Nancy to an afternoon class
at Papanti's, and bring her back afterwards, if cousin Snow were
willing to spare her. Tom would wait and drive back with her in the
coupe; then he must hurry to Cambridge for a business meeting to which
he had been suddenly summoned.
Nancy was radiant when she first appeared, but a few minutes later, as
they drove away together, she began to look grave and absent. It was
only because she was so sorry to think of parting.
"I am so glad about the dancing class," said Tom. "I never should have
thought of that. They are all children, you know; but it's very
pretty, and they have all the new dances. I used to think it a horrid
penance when I was a small boy."
"I don't know why it is," said Nancy, "but the mere thought of music
and dancin' makes me feel happy. I never saw any real good dancin',
either, but I can always think what it ought to be. There's nothing so
beautiful to me as manners," she added softly, as if she whispered at
the shrine of confidence.
"My aunt thinks there are going to be some pretty figure dances
to-day," announced Tom in a matter-of-fact way. There was something
else than the dancing upon his mind. He thought that he ought to tell
Nancy of his engagement,--not that it was quite an engagement
yet,--but he could not do it just now. "What was it you were going to
tell me this morning? About Addie Porter, wasn't it?" He laughed a
little, and then colored deeply. He had been somewhat foolish in his
attentions to this young person, the beguiling village belle of East
Rodney and the adjacent coasts. She was a pretty creature and a sad
flirt, with none of the real beauty and quaint sisterly ways of Nancy.
"What was it all about?" he asked again.
Nancy turned away quickly. "That's one thing I wanted to come to
Boston for; that's what I want to tell you. She don't really care
anything about you. She only wanted to get you away from the other
girls. I know for certain that she likes Joe Brown better than
anybody, and now she's been going with him almost all winter long. He
keeps telling round that they're going to be married in the spring;
but I thought if they were, she'd ask me to get some of her best
things while I was in Boston. I suppose she's intendin' to play with
him a while longer," said Nancy with honest scorn, "just because he
loves her well enough to wait. But don't you worry about her,
Mr. Aldis!"
"I won't indeed," answered Tom meekly, but with an unexpected feeling
of relief as if the unconscious danger had been a real one. Nancy was
very serious.
"I'm going home the first of the week," she said as they parted; but
the small hand felt colder than usual, and did not return his warm
grasp. The light in her eyes had all gone, but Tom's beamed
affectionately.
"I never thought of Addie Porter afterward, I'm afraid," he confessed.
"What awfully good fun we all had! I should like to go down to East
Rodney again some time."
"Oh, shan't you ever come?" cried Nancy, with a thrill in her voice
which Tom did not soon forget. He did not know that the young girl's
heart was waked, he was so busy with the affairs of his own
affections; but true friendship does not grow on every bush, in Boston
or East Rodney, and Nancy's voice and farewell look touched something
that lay very deep within his heart.
There is a little more to be told of this part of the story.
Mrs. Annesley, Tom's aunt, being a woman whose knowledge of human
nature and power of sympathy made her a woman of the world rather than
of any smaller circle,--Mrs. Annesley was delighted with Nancy's
unaffected pleasure and self-forgetful dignity of behavior at the
dancing-school. She took her back to the fine house, and they had half
an hour together there, and only parted because Nancy was to spend the
night with cousin Snow, and another old friend of her mother's was to
be asked to tea. Mrs. Annesley asked her to come to see her again,
whenever she was in Boston, and Nancy gratefully promised, but she
never came. "I'm all through with Boston for this time," she said,
with an amused smile, at parting. "I'm what one of our neighbors calls
'all flustered up,'" and she looked eagerly in her new friend's kind
eyes for sympathy. "Now that I've seen this beautiful house, and you
and Mr. Aldis, and some pretty dancin', I want to go right home where
I belong."
Tom Aldis meant to write to Nancy when his engagement came out, but he
never did; and he meant to send a long letter to her and her mother
two years later, when he and his wife were going abroad for a long
time; but he had an inborn hatred of letter-writing, and let that
occasion pass also, though when anything made him very sorry or very
glad, he had a curious habit of thinking of these East Rodney friends.
Before he went to Europe he used to send them magazines now and then,
or a roll of illustrated papers; and one day, in a bookstore, he
happened to see a fine French book with colored portraits of famous
dancers, and sent it by express to Nancy with his best remembrances.
But Tom was young and much occupied, the stream of time floated him
away from the shore of Maine, not toward it, ten or fifteen years
passed by, his brown hair began to grow gray, and he came back from
Europe after a while to a new Boston life in which reminiscences of
East Rodney seemed very remote indeed.