that she could ask a few questions.

There came a day--an astonishing day--when she felt irritated with her
mother. She had during her walk through the garden seen a little boy and
a little girl, who were grubbing about in a little pile of earth and
sand there in the corner under the trees, and grubbing very happily.
They had dirt upon their faces, but their nurse was sitting, apparently
quite easy in her mind, and the sun had not stopped in its course nor
had the birds upon the trees ceased to sing. Nancy stayed for a moment
her progress and looked at them, and something not very far from envy
struck, in some far-distant hiding-place, her soul. She moved on, but
when she came indoors and was met by her mamma and a handsome lady, her
mamma's friend, who said: "Isn't she a pretty dear?" and her mother
said: "That's right, Nancy darling, been for your walk?" she was, for an
amazing moment, irritated with her beautiful mother.


III

Once she was conscious of this desire to ask questions she had no more
peace. Although she was only five years of age, she had all the
determination not "to give herself away" of a woman of forty. She was
not going to show that she wanted anything in the world, and yet she
would have liked--A little wistfully she looked at her nurse. But that
good woman, carefully chosen by Mrs. Ross, was not the one to encourage
questions. She was as shining as a new brass nail, and a great deal
harder.

The nursery was as neat as a pin, with a lovely bright rocking-horse
upon which Nancy had never ridden; a pink doll's-house with every modern