“I wonder why?” said Cis absent-mindedly. “Believe I’ll give this blouse to the waitress. It’s a bit tight for me, though it’s still as good as ever, but that poor little lean thing will like something decent, and she’ll be able to lap it over the way it was meant to go; I can’t.” She held up a pretty linen shirt-waist, turning it by the shoulders, considering it in the sunshine’s strong light. “You wonder why you should leave a trunk with me?” Nan persisted, ignoring Cis’s suggestion of the gift. “Because it looks so horridly final when you’ve taken everything with you; you may want to come home again. At least you might let me hope that you will, let me feel I had a link with you.” “I won’t come back next winter, Nanny; I’ll push on farther if Beaconhite doesn’t appreciate me--or I appreciate it. I don’t say I’ll never come back, but I know I’m going to keep away a while,” declared Cis. “So there’s no telling what I could get on without. And as to that word ‘home’ you used, where’s my home? In those trunks! A girl like me, without kith nor kin, boarding or lodging, hasn’t a home. Of course, I’ll always call this old town home, because I was born here and grew up here, but that’s nonsense, when you come to think of it. You’re the only thing here to come back to; I don’t need to leave a trunk to hitch me up to you, small Person! So your silly Cicely takes all she owns with her. Say, Nan, why do you suppose they didn’t nickname me Silly, instead of Cis? Comes just as straight from Cicely!” “Oh, dear Cis! You always make me feel as if you were a kite and the rope was slipping through my fingers! You’re the friendliest thing, yet you don’t care one bit for people--unless it is for me?” sighed Nan. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to Father Lennon? And--and--go to confession this afternoon before you start?” Cis shook her head hard. “Not time for confession for me yet; not for quite a long while. I’ll turn up somewhere by Easter, maybe at Christmas! Don’t look bothered, good little Nan! I’m going to be honest whatever else I am. I often wonder if I’m honest to go at all. You don’t think God can like us to pretend, do you?” Cis turned unexpectedly serious. “I think He likes us to hold on hard when we are tempted to let go, and that we can be honest in wanting to hold on, at least,” said Nan slowly. “I’m pretty sure this idea you have of being honest is dangerous. Isn’t it just as honest to receive the sacraments because you know you ought to, as because you happen to feel like it? And there’s more merit in it, so it is sure to earn the feeling for you after a while?” Nan spoke hesitatingly; she stood in awe of Cis, of her cleverness, her reserves, and also her unreserve, which was likely at any time to shock Nan.