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An Ching told her that it was of no use to cry, and that if she made any trouble or noise she would be whipped, but if she were good and quiet no one would be unkind to her. A Chinese barber arrived, and poor Nelly was obliged to submit to having her front hair cut away and a small portion of her head shaved. Nelly's hair was dark, though not black, like a Chinese child's.

Nelly's eyes swam, as she too bowed the head, thinking of another who would never come back; and Tommy, thumb in mouth, leant against her, listening attentively. At the end of the thanksgiving however, Backhouse raised his head briskly. 'Not that I iver believed that foolish yoong mon as wrote me that Dick wor dead, he said, contemptuously. 'Bit it's as weel to git things clear.

About an hour later the girls were back at the paddock, Nelly's face alight with joy, for it had not taken good old Mammy long to see that the chief cause of Nelly's lack of strength was lack of proper nourishment, and her skilled old hands were soon busy with sherry and raw eggs as a preliminary, to be followed by one of Aunt Cynthia's dainty little luncheons; a luncheon composed of what Mammy hinted "mus' be somethin' wha' gwine fer ter stick ter dat po' chile's ribs, 'case she jist nachelly half-starved."

Nelly's eyes were closed for weeks well-nigh for ever and the skin peeled off her face; but she consented to the cruel punishment without a murmur after the first shriek of agony, and won Tom to good temper and tolerance of her vanity by all sorts of happy concessions. How many such tiffs tough and smart has poor Nelly borne?

She was fond of blue, and the simplicity of it became her fresh youth. Just as the soldiers halted the wind caught Nelly's blue bow, and, having played with it a little, sent it drifting down like a little blue flower among the men on horseback. It was such a slight thing that the General might not have noticed it. Anyhow, he made no comment, but watched the troops out of sight as usual.

"She is a wonder no matter where you find her," said Nelly quietly, "and she grows to be more and more of a wonder the longer you know her." "How long have you been observing this wonderful wonder?" asked Juno. "I think Peggy Stewart has held my interest from the first moment we came to live at Severndale," was Nelly's perfectly truthful, though not wholly enlightening, answer.

Under the influence of her watchword, Bessie was making good headway against her faults of idleness and carelessness, and her mother declared she was growing a "real comfort" to her. Under her teaching Nelly's reading had progressed so well, that she could spell out very creditably a chapter in the New Testament.

Presently there were voices beneath them climbing voices that came nearer of a man and a woman. Nelly's hand begun to pluck restlessly at the grass beside her. Cicely emerged first, Cicely in white, very bridal, and very happy. Very conscious too, though she did not betray it by a movement or a look, of the significance of this first meeting, since Sarratt's death, between her brother and Nelly.

He received Nelly's remarks with a furtive smile, as though he were only waiting for her to have done, and when they ceased, he drew a letter slowly from his pocket. 'D'ye see that, Mum? Nelly nodded. 'I'se juist gotten it from t' Post Office. They woant gie ye noothin' till it's forced oot on 'em. But I goa regular, an to-day owd Jacob 'at's him as keps t' Post Office handed it ower.

He hastened out of the kitchen, with the happy glance he never failed to give the living-room its red-papered walls with shiny imitation-oak woodwork; the rows of steins on the plate-rack; the imitation-oak dining-table, with a vase of newly dusted paper roses; the Morris chair, with Nelly's sewing on a tiny wicker table beside it; the large gilt-framed oleograph of "Pike's Peak by Moonlight."