"And then I think, Nan, he would have referred to the old disagreement and it would all have been very painful, and she would have had to go away and been lonely ever after and have left undone her duty to Florence's child. So she lived quietly in the old house with the little girl and the servant and all went well for a year and then--well, then, dear Nan, I think I need not tell what happened then. But, oh, my dear, you are my own little girl--Florence's child and I loved her, ah! I loved her so. For her sake you are mine now. Never say that you are 'all alone' again. I have taken you as a sacred trust. Come to me, Nan, for I am lonely too, I am lonely too." CHAPTER XXI ANOTHER CHRISTMAS It was Christmas eve. Nan was sitting before the dining-room fire curled up in a huge arm chair thinking. Her pale face had grown wonderfully sweet during the last few weeks; the curves about her mouth had softened; her eyes had lost their keen sparkle and gained a softer light instead. She seemed to have undergone a complete transformation, and any one seeing the headstrong hoyden of the year before would have found it difficult to recognize her in this gentle-mannered girl with her serene brow and patient eyes, to whom suffering had taught so hard a lesson. Her black dress and her parted hair gave her a wonderfully meek look. But Nan was not meek. She was merely controlled. The same hot passions still rose in her breast, but she tried to restrain them now. This evening she was thinking over all that had happened during the past year; especially she was trying to project her thoughts into the future, and to imagine what would occur in the years to come. She had not yet become accustomed to the idea of life without her father. It seemed to her that he must be alive, and she often waked up in the night from such a vivid dream of him that it seemed as though he really stood beside her, and that she might feel his hand if she stretched forth her own in the dark. It was difficult to reconcile herself to living without the hope of his return; it was hard to convince herself that she must never look forward to receiving a letter from him again. But she knew it must be accomplished, and the effort would help to make a noble woman of her. As she sat there in the dim room, with only the fire to light it, she wondered whether anything could make of her as noble a woman as was her "Aunt Isabel." In her heart she felt not. Aunt Isabel was simply perfect in the girl's sight, and if she could ever have been brought to doubt her perfection, why, there was Delia to prove it with her emphatic: "No, ma'am! There ain't no one in this world like her. She is the best, the generousest, the most self-sacrificin' soul on earth--that she is, and I've known her ever since she was a child. If any one was to ask me the name of the woman I've most call to honor an' love, I'd say 'twas Isabel Blake Severance an' never stop a minute to think it over."