them. She introduced Nancy to clothes and deportment, and left it at
that. She wanted her child to "look nice." She was able, now that Nancy
was five years old, to say that she "looked very nice indeed."


II

From the very beginning nurses were chosen who would take care of Nancy
Boss's appearance. There was plenty of money to spend, and Nancy was a
child who, with her flaxen hair and blue eyes, would repay trouble. She
_did_ repay it, because she had no desires towards grubbiness or
rebellion, or any wildnesses whatever. She just sat there with her doll
balanced neatly in her arms, and allowed herself to be pulled and
twisted and squeezed and stretched. "There's a pretty little lady,"
said nurse, and a pretty little lady Nancy was sure that she was. The
order for her day was that in the morning she went out for a walk in the
gardens in the Square, and in the afternoon she went out for another.
During these walks she moved slowly, her doll delicately carried, her
beautiful clothes shining with approval of the way that they were worn,
her head high, "like a little queen," said her nurse. She was conscious
of the other children in the gardens, who often stopped in the middle of
their play and watched her. She thought them hot and dirty and very
noisy. She was sorry for their mothers.

It happened sometimes that she came downstairs, towards the end of a
luncheon party, and was introduced to the guests. "You pretty little
thing," women in very large hats said to her. "Lovely hair," or "She's
the very image of _you_, Clarice," to her mother. She liked to hear that
because she greatly admired her mother. She knew that she, Nancy Ross,
was beautiful; she knew that clothes were of an immense importance; she