and sewed and sewed. Nan was interested, and although her tears often dropped upon the black stuff, yet, when Phoebe assured her that her mother was growing happier each moment at the thought of the very deep mourning her little daughter was to wear, she cheered up.
“You are quite, quite certain you are telling me the truth, Phoebe?” said Nan at last.
“Certain sure, miss. Didn’t I live through it all when poor Susan Fagan lost her mother? This is a dress for all the world the same as Susan appeared in at the funeral.”
After two or three days’ hard work the dress was finished. It was certainly not stylish to look at. Then there came an awful time when carriages drove up to the house, and all that was left of poor Mrs. Esterleigh was borne away to her long home. Nan could never afterwards quite recall that dreadful day. Mrs. Richmond arrived early. She had borne with Nan’s wish to stay locked into the parlour with what patience she could; but on the day of the funeral she insisted on the door being opened, and when Nan appeared before her in her lugubrious dress, badly made, with no fit whatever, the good woman gave a shocked exclamation.
“My dear child,” she said, “I have got a suitable dress for you. I found a frock of yours upstairs and had it measured. Take off that awful thing.”
“This awful thing!” said Nan. “I bought it with my own money. I won’t wear anything – anything else. And Sophia Maria is in mourning too,” she added; and she pointed to her doll, which was attired in crape from head to foot.
“Let her wear it,” said a voice behind her; and raising her eyes, Nan saw the kindly face of Mr. Pryor looking at her.
He had always been a strange sort of character, and it seemed now that in one glance he understood the child; he held out his hand and drew her towards him.
“You bought this out of your own money?” he asked,
“Yes,” answered Nan.
Tears trembled on her eyelashes; she raised her eyes and looked full at Mr. Pryor.
“And there is a lot of crape,” she said. “Everybody must know that she was a very near relation.”
“And you made it yourself?”
“Phoebe and I made it ourselves; and Maria is in black too.” She touched the doll with her finger.
“Then you shall go to the funeral in that dress,” said Mr. Pryor. “I take it upon me to say that your mother would wish it, and that is enough.”
So Nan attended her mother’s funeral in the dress she had made herself, and stood close to the grave, and tried vaguely to realise what was taking place. But what chiefly impressed her was the depth of the shabby crape on her little skirt, and the fact that she had bought her mourning out of her very own savings, and that the doll, Sophia Maria, from whom she would not be parted for a single moment, was also in mourning.
CHAPTER IV. – THE BEST GIRL
Immediately after the funeral Mrs. Richmond took Nan’s hand.
“Now, dear,” she said, “you come home with me.”
Nan turned first red and then very white. She was just about to reply when Mr. Pryor came forward.
“Madam,” he said, “may I make a request? I want to ask a very great favour.”
“If possible I will grant it,” replied Mrs. Richmond.
“I have known Mrs. Esterleigh, this dear little girl’s mother, for two or three years; and on the whole, although I am not specially fond of children, I think I also know Nan well. Now, I want to know if you will grant me the great favour of allowing me to take Nan home to my rooms until this evening. I will promise to bring her to you this evening.”
“Oh yes, I will go with you and with Phoebe,” said Nan. She clasped hold of Mr. Pryor’s hand and held it to her heart, and she looked round for Phoebe, who in her shabby frock was standing on the outskirts of the group.
Phoebe was nodding to Nan and making mysterious signs to her. Mrs. Richmond looked full at Mr. Pryor.
“I do not wish to make Nan more unhappy than I can help to-day,” she said; “so if you will bring her to my house by six o’clock this evening I will be satisfied.”
She turned away and entered her own carriage, and Mr. Pryor looked at Nan.
“It is only two o’clock,” he said; “we have four hours. A great deal can be done in four hours. What do you say to our spending the day out here in the country?”
“Oh,” said Nan, “in the country! Is this the country?”
“This is Highgate. I have a carriage, and I will get the man to drive us quite out into the country parts – perhaps to Barnet. The day happens to be a lovely one. I have a kind of desire to go into the Hadleigh Woods with you; what do you say?”
Nan gave a vague nod, and looked round for Phoebe.
“You would like your little friend Phoebe to come too?”
Nan’s whole face lit up.
“Oh, very, very much!” she said.
“Well, she is standing there; go and ask her.”
So Nan rushed up to Phoebe.
“Phoebe,” she said, “shall we go into the country with Mr. Pryor? I need not be back till six o’clock.”
“I don’t know if my mistress would wish it,” said Phoebe.
“I will take upon myself to say that Mrs. Vincent will not be angry with you,” said Mr. Pryor, coming up at this moment. “Now, children, get into my carriage; I will give the driver directions.”
So they left the cemetery and drove away and away into the heart of the country. It took them some little time to reach it, but at last they got where the trees grew in numbers and houses were few and far between; and although it was winter the day was a lovely one, and there was a warm sunshine, and it seemed to Nan that she had come out of the most awful gloom and misery into a peace and a joy which she could scarcely understand.
Mr. Pryor dismissed the carriage when it set them down at a pretty little inn, and he took Nan by the hand and led her into the parlour, and asked the landlord for a private room; and there he and Nan and Phoebe had dinner together.
It was a simple dinner – the very simplest possible – and Sophia Maria sat on Nan’s lap while she ate, and Mr. Pryor talked very little, and when he did it was in a grave voice.
Phoebe looked somewhat awed; and as to Nan, the sense of grief and bewilderment grew greater each moment.
“Now, Phoebe,” said Mr. Pryor when the meal was over, “I want our little party to divide. There are four of us, for of course I consider Sophia Maria quite one of the family.”
“Oh, she is quite, the darling!” said Nan.
“Will you take charge of her for a little, Phoebe,” said Mr. Pryor, “while Nan and I go for a walk?”
“Oh, must we?” said Nan, looking full at him.
He
