nanny was cross. she had lost her bubbling merriment and her family wondered.
"sis, i believe you will be an old maid, all right. i'm beginning to see the signs already," her brother lazily told her one day when to some innocent remark of his she made a snapping answer.
mr. ainslee laughed.
"you aren't reading the signs correctly, son," he said. "nan's crossness can be interpreted another way. it's my private opinion that nanny's in love."
whereupon mr. ainslee dodged for he fully expected that nanny would hurl a pillow his way. but nanny didn't. she turned a little white, caught her breath a little hurriedly and then stood looking quietly at the two men. when she left the room her father was a little worried and her brother a little uncomfortable.
"i guess we'd better let up on the teasing, dad," the boy suggested in the serious, soft voice that had been his mother's, the mother who had never teased.
"i wouldn't hurt nanny for the world," penitently murmured mr. ainslee. "i had no idea—oh, son," he suddenly groaned, "i wish your mother was here to look after us all."
and the great diplomat who was known and welcomed at the courts of great nations was suddenly only a plain man, crying out his heart's need of the loved woman he had lost so many years ago.
and because the boy was the son of the woman for whom his father grieved he knew how to sympathize and comfort the man.
"i've missed her too—lots of times—even though, dad, you've been the most wonderful father two kids ever had."
the man stared out into the sunny world outside the windows and all unashamed let the tears fill his fine eyes.
the boy, seeing those tears, all at once remembered now many times, when he was an unheeding youngster, he had seen this same father sitting at the departed mother's desk with his head pillowed in his arms.
"dad," the boy's awed voice questioned, "is love a thing as big and terrible and lasting as that?"
the man wiped his eyes and smiled.
"yes, son, love is as wonderful and lasting and in a way as terrible as that. it was wrong of me to tease nanny. but i have been worried about my motherless girl. i'd like to see her happily settled. somehow i've never worried about you."
"no," and the boy smiled an odd little smile that showed just how he had missed a mother's petting, "it's always mothers that worry about the boys, isn't it?"
at this second revelation and blunder mr. ainslee was so startled that he forgot to go in search of nanny.
as a matter of fact nanny had left the house. she wanted to go to the knoll and think over carefully certain matters that had been puzzling her of late. but she dared not go to the grove on the hilltop. for only half an hour before she had seen green valley's young minister walking up to her old seat under the oaks. perhaps if her father had not said what he did—nanny frowned impatiently, then sighed and walked down the road to grandma wentworth's. she told herself that she was going down to visit grandma and tell her the week's news. but she was really going to find heartease and because at grandma's she would hear oftenest the name that now had the power to quicken her heart beats and bring her a pain that was strangely edged with joy.
grandma was weeding her seed onions and very sensibly let nanny help. nanny's fingers flew in and out and because she dared not tell her own heart troubles she told grandma about jocelyn and david and the foolish bit of gossip that had come between them.
"i think, grandma, somebody ought to do something about it. can't you—"
grandma shook her head.
"nanny," grandma mourned, "i'm afraid to meddle in things like that. love is a wonderful strange thing for which there are no rules. and the hearts of men and women must all have their share of sorrow. for it's only through pain and endless blunders that we human folks ever learn. i've seen strange love history in this town and lots of it. and i've learned one thing and that is that each heart wants to do its loving in its own way without help or hindrance from the rest of the world. so we'd best say nothing and let david and jocelyn find a way out of their trouble and misunderstanding."
but nanny, with all the impatience of youth, rebelled.
"it's foolish," she stormed, "when just a dozen frank words would straighten it out."
"yes—a dozen words would do it," sighed grandma, "but think, nanny, what it would cost david to say those dozen words—or jocelyn."
"conventions are foolish. honesty is better."
"yes, honesty is always best. but truth is something that lovers find hardest to manage and listen to. and you know, nanny, even a happy love means a certain amount of sorrow."
"does it?" the girl wondered.
"yes," said grandma softly, "it does, as i and many another woman can testify. i'm only hoping that a love great and fine will come to cynthia's boy and that it won't cost him too much."
"why," asked nanny carelessly, "should life be easier and richer for him?"
"because long before he was born his mother paid for his birthright and happiness with part of her own, and if god is just and life fair then her courage and sorrow ought to count for something and her loss be his gain."
"hadn't you better tell me the whole story, grandma?" begged nan.
"it isn't exactly all mine to tell. but some day i dare say i shall."
grandma rose and glanced mischievously at the girl.
"nanny, i'll tell you the day you come to me and tell me you're in love. not engaged, you understand, but in love."
again nanny whitened and caught her breath and then looked quietly at grandma in a way that made the dear old soul say hurriedly:
"there, there, child, i didn't mean to meddle or hurt."
to herself she added, "we're all blundering fools at times. and why is it that youth always thinks that all the world is blind and stupid?"
grandma's penitent mind then recalled the box of pictures that cynthia's son had brought down to show her the night before. it still stood on the living-room table. so the wise and tender soul sent nanny in to fetch it.
they sat on the back steps and looked at pictures of cynthia in her far-away home in india. there were pictures of her husband and the brown babies and of their neighbors. but mostly the pictures were of a boy, a drolly solemn little fellow. nanny exclaimed again and again over these and the one of the boy holding a pet hen in his arms she fairly devoured.
"what a darling kiddy he was," she laughed tenderly. "no wonder his mother loved him so."
"he ought to be a fine boy. his mother paid a big price for him," grandma told her.
but nanny didn't hear. she had just discovered that there were two of those boy and hen pictures and she wondered if—
just then grandma spied a hen in her lavender bed and went off to shoo her out. and while her back was so providentially turned nanny ainslee, an honorable, world-famous diplomat's only daughter, coolly and deliberately tucked the picture of a little boy and his pet hen down into the bosom of her gown.
shortly after nanny said she guessed she'd have to be going, that it was getting late and that she had had an argument with her father just before she came and had been short an answer. but that she had just this minute thought of something to say.
grandma let her go without a word because she thought that, like herself, the girl had seen cynthia's boy coming down the hill and wished with girlish shyness to be out of the house when he came. but nanny had not seen him, had not been watching the roads, so taken was she with her guilty secret. her surprise when she almost ran into him was genuine enough.
his face lighted at sight of her.
"i spent the afternoon up on the hill. i thought maybe i should find you there. it was rather lonesome."
he had evidently forgotten and forgiven her rudeness on the hilltop that day when they had been up there together. nanny was suddenly so happy and confused that she could think of nothing to say except to make the formal little confession:
"i have been visiting grandma wentworth and looking at pictures of you. you were a mighty nice little boy in those days."
the new softness in her words made him look at her wistfully for a second but the hint of laughter that went with it made him cautious. this lovely, laughing girl had hurt him several times and had laughed at him. he meant to be careful. so he said gravely and politely:
"did you see the pictures of my mother?"
"yes. she must have been a wonderful and an adorable mother."
that made him happy. he wanted very much to turn and walk back with her, this girl whose presence always brought him such pleasure. but she had forbidden him to do this. it seemed that in his home land women were wonderfully independent creatures.
so he let her go on alone and with a disappointed heart. for nanny had hoped that he would ask and she had meant to let him. with the disappointment came the taunting memory of her words to grandma wentworth: "honesty is best. a dozen words would do it."
that evening when her father clumsily tried to make amends nan said carelessly:
"never mind, dad. i am in love—with a little boy and his pet hen."
but she had the grace to blush. and that night as she slipped the picture under her pillow she said a little defiantly:
"well—what of it? all is fair in love and war."
