Alice smiled at this vehement cordiality.
"I do not see why you cannot see your brother and visit with him just as well at our house," put in Mrs. Nason; "he is always welcome there, and he knows it, I am sure."
Alice turned to her brother, remarking: "It is nice of you to insist, and I am more than grateful, but it must be as he says." Then she added prettily: "He is my papa and mamma now, and the cook and captain bold, and mate of the 'Nancy' brig as well."
"I will stir up a mutiny on the 'Nancy' brig if he does not consent," laughed Blanch, "so there is an end to that; and you must be ready at ten to-morrow."
"Well, what do you think of the 'haughty mother' now?" observed Albert, after the Nasons had rolled away in their carriage. "Is she the awful spectre you imagined?"
"Oh, she's nice enough," answered Alice, "only it is just as well to let her see I need a little urging."
Three more days of Alice's visit in Boston had passed, and quickly to her. Blanch had kept her threat, and literally taken possession of her new friend, and installed her in the guest room of the Nason residence. Then she set out to entertain Alice to the best of her ample ability. To be taken in hand, as it were, by a highly cultured and wealthy young lady, and to have a liveried and obsequious coachman on duty to convey them anywhere and everywhere, was a new experience, and a decided change from Sandgate. The two went shopping mornings, and to matinées or made calls afternoons, or discussed styles and effects with modistes; evenings it was a theatre or else a quiet evening at home, when Mr. Nason was in evidence. As for Frank, he was barely allowed the privilege of procuring tickets and buying bonbons, or else making one of a rubber of whist. "Don't you dare to say any sweet things while she is here," Blanch had cautioned him at the outset. "In the first place it is not good form, and in the second it would offend her. Be as gallant as you know how, but do not let mamma see that you are any more attentive to Alice than to Ede and I. If you hope to win your pretty schoolma'am you must pay your court in her own home, not here." It is needless to say Frank obeyed. It was not long ere Alice began to feel herself quite at home in the Nason family, and to notice that Mrs. Nason treated her in a motherly way which was both nice and kind. That excellent lady also expressed a warm sympathy for Alice in her orphaned condition, and showed an interest in her occupation at home.