CHAPTER II

HOW NANCE CAME TO BE HERSELF


And little Nance?

The most persistent memories of Nance's childhood were her fear and
hatred of Tom, and her passionate love for her mother,--and Bernel when
he came.

"My own," she called these two, and regarded even her father as somewhat
outside that special pale; esteemed Grannie as an Olympian, benevolently
inclined, but dwelling on a remote and loftier plane; and feared and
detested Tom as an open enemy.

And she had reasons.

She was a high-strung child, too strong and healthy to be actually
nervous, but with every faculty always at its fullest--not only in
active working order but always actively at work--an admirable subject
therefore for the malevolence of an enemy whose constant proximity
offered him endless opportunity.

Much of his boyish persecution never reached the ears of the higher
powers. Nance very soon came to accept Tom's rough treatment as natural
from a big fellow of fourteen to a small girl of eight, and she bore it
stoically and hated him the harder.