“Oh, I’ve been expecting to hear it,” she said grimly.  “I felt the minute that man came into the house he brought trouble with him.  Well, Miss Charlotte, I wish you happiness.  I don’t know how the climate of California will agree with me, but I suppose I’ll have to put up with it.”

“But, Nancy,” I said, “I can’t expect you to go away out there with me.  It’s too much to ask of you.”

“And where else would I be going?” demanded Nancy in genuine astonishment.  “How under the canopy could you keep house without me?  I’m not going to trust you to the mercies of a yellow Chinee with a pig-tail.  Where you go I go, Miss Charlotte, and there’s an end of it.”

I was very glad, for I hated to think of parting with Nancy even to go with Cecil.  As for the blank book, I haven’t told my husband about it yet, but I mean to some day.  And I’ve subscribed for the Weekly Advocate again.

III.  HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER

“We must invite your Aunt Jane, of course,” said Mrs. Spencer.

Rachel made a protesting movement with her large, white, shapely hands—­hands which were so different from the thin, dark, twisted ones folded on the table opposite her.  The difference was not caused by hard work or the lack of it; Rachel had worked hard all her life.  It was a difference inherent in temperament.  The Spencers, no matter what they did, or how hard they labored, all had plump, smooth, white hands, with firm, supple fingers; the Chiswicks, even those who toiled not, neither did they spin, had hard, knotted, twisted ones.  Moreover, the contrast went deeper than externals, and twined itself with the innermost fibers of life, and thought, and action.

“I don’t see why we must invite Aunt Jane,” said Rachel, with as much impatience as her soft, throaty voice could express.  “Aunt Jane doesn’t like me, and I don’t like Aunt Jane.”

“I’m sure I don’t see why you don’t like her,” said Mrs. Spencer.  “It’s ungrateful of you.  She has always been very kind to you.”

“She has always been very kind with one hand,” smiled Rachel.  “I remember the first time I ever saw Aunt Jane.  I was six years old.  She held out to me a small velvet pincushion with beads on it.  And then, because I did not, in my shyness, thank her quite as promptly as I should have done, she rapped my head with her bethimbled finger to ‘teach me better manners.’  It hurt horribly—­I’ve always had a tender head.  And that has been Aunt Jane’s way ever since.  When I grew too big for the thimble treatment she used her tongue instead—­and that hurt worse.  And you know, mother, how she used to talk about my engagement.  She is able to spoil the whole atmosphere if she happens to come in a bad humor.  I don’t want her.”

“She must be invited.  People would talk so if she wasn’t.”

“I don’t see why they should.  She’s only my great-aunt by marriage.  I wouldn’t mind in the least if people did talk.  They’ll talk anyway—­you know that, mother.”