" This
statement had reference to a comfortable and informal position she
held with a private association for the relief of the poor. Nancy
was paid fifteen dollars a week, seven of which she in turn paid
to the pretty young widow, an old family friend only a few years
older than herself, with whom she boarded. Mrs. Terhune was rich,
in a modest way, and frequently refused the money entirely. But
she took it often enough to make the blooming Nancy feel quite
self-supporting, and as Nancy duly reported at the sunshiny office
of the Southern Ladies' Helping Hand every morning, or almost
every morning, the girl had some reason to feel that she had
solved her financial and domestic problem.
Bert was handsome, too, and his mother knew everybody who was any
body in Boston. If Nancy's grandfather Polk had been Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court of Maryland, why, Bert was the seventh of his
name in direct descent, and it was in Bert's great-great-
grandfather's home that several prominent citizens of Boston had
assumed feathers and warpaint for a celebrated tea-party a great
many years ago.
More than that, Bert was at a sensible age for matrimony, twenty-
five, and Nancy, like all southern girls, had ripened early, and
at twenty-two had several years of dancing and flirting behind
her.
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