There was Miss Jane Barclay very fashionably attired, Miss Morris, and her brother, who was very attentive to Miss Barclay, and a little farther on Mrs. Morris, fat, fair, and matronly. She was reading "The Lady of the Manor," and when the little girl found it afterward in a Sunday-school library, Mrs. Morris seemed curiously mixed up with it. Sunday papers at that period would have horrified most people.
"What a dear little girl!" said Mrs. Morris. "Come here and tell me your name. Why, you look like a lily astray in a bed of buttercups. Is it possible Mr. Stephen Underhill is your brother?"
"The eldest and the youngest," explained Stephen. "And this is my sister, Miss Underhill."
Mrs. Morris bowed and shook hands. Then she made room on the settee for the child.
"You haven't told me your name, my dear."
Mrs. Morris' voice was so soft, almost pleading. The little girl glanced up and colored, and if the bank could have broken and let her money down in the ocean, or some one could have stolen it and bought a new Manhattan Island in the South Seas,--so that she could have had a new name, she wouldn't have minded a bit. But she said with brave sweetness:
"Hannah Ann. I was named after both grandmothers."
"That's a long name for such a little girl. I believe I should call you Nannie or Nansie. And Mr. Morris would call you Nan at once. I never knew such a man for short names. We've always called our Elizabeth Bess, and half the time her father calls her Bet, to save one letter."
The little girl laughed. The economy of the thing seemed funny.
"'Little girl,' most always. Margaret was grown into quite a big girl when I was born, so I was the little girl."
"Well--that's pretty, too. And where are you living?"
"Why, that's way up-town! And--let me see--you did live at Yonkers? I've never been there. Is it a town?"
"We lived on a great big farm. And oh, the Croton water pipe came right across one corner of it."
"Ah, you should have seen the celebration! Such a wonderful, indescribable thing!"
"Margaret came down and most of the boys. Mother said I would be crushed to death."
"And she couldn't spare her little girl! Well, I don't blame her. Do you go to school?"
"No, ma'am, not yet." All the children but the very rough ones said "no, ma'am," and "yes, ma'am," in those days. "But I did go at Yonkers."
