k was at
Nancy.

"Do you stay now?" she asked.

"I had intended to go back at the end of the week, but I have changed
my mind. With my father's leave, I'll spend the summer----"

"It does not take you long to change your mind," Nancy returned with a
smile.

"No," he said, and here he leaned forward, took her hand and kissed it.
"No! It took me just one second."

I knew that she was not to be moved by any admiration which happened to
come by. She paid a gracious attention to Danvers Carmichael, it is
true, insisting, though he stoutly affirmed to the contrary, that she
knew him to be hungry, that one could not _dine_ at The Star and
Garter, ordering a small table with some cold fowl and a bottle of wine
for him, all as though it were the thing nearest her heart. I, who knew
her, understood that if it had been a tramp body from the lowlands who
had come upon us she would have given the same thought to him and
forgotten him by morning; but to a man, London bred and unaware as yet
with whom his dealings lay, her solicitude for him might readily be
interpreted as having something more purely personal in its nature.

And this day was to be marked by another event than the home-coming of
Danvers; an event which, if it had occurred six weeks later, might have
changed the destiny of many lives, and given England another Premier
than William Pitt. Before we parted for the night, Danvers took from
his pocket a book, which he handed to Nancy with a bow.

"It's not family jewels; nor yet a trifling necklace of pearls; nor can
I honestly affirm it was intended as a gift, but if you will accept it
from me as a birthday token it will make me very glad," and he handed
the volume to her.

"Poetry," she said with a pleased smile, "and in the Scot. Robert
Burns! Is he a new man?"

"He's a plowman in Ayr, somewhere, and I have it that his verses are
something fine. I've not read them myself, and the thought comes to me
a little late that they may not be the fittest reading for a young
lady, but your father will judge of it for you."

Sandy and I laughed aloud at this.

"The reason these ill-natured gentlemen laughed at you as they did was
because of the lax way they have brought me up," Nancy explained.
"They've let me 'gang my ain gate' since I was five. I've had no right
raising," she said, and the very sweetness of her as she said it would
have made any man keen for the rearing which produced her. "So,
considering my super