"Mrs. Duke is over at the Main Building, but will be back very soon. Will you come in and wait?"
She came in without speaking, pulled a chair from the corner of the porch, and flounced down among the cushions. David could not restrain a smile. She looked so babyishly young, and so furiously cross. To David, youth and crossness were incongruous.
"I am Nancy Tucker," said the girl at last.
"And I am Mr. Duke, as you probably surmise from seeing me on Mrs. Duke's porch. She will be back directly. I hope you are not in a hurry."
"Hurry! What's the use of hurrying? I am twenty years old. I've got a whole lifetime to do nothing in, haven't I?"
"You've got a lifetime ahead of you all right, but whether you are going to do nothing or not depends largely on you."
"It doesn't depend on me at all. It depends on God, and He said, 'Nothing doing. Just get out and rust the rest of your life. We don't need you.'"
"That does not sound like God," said David quietly.
"Oh, the bugs,--you've got them, have you? You don't look like it. I didn't know it was your health. I thought maybe it was just your disposition."
David smiled winningly as he spoke, and the smile took the sting from the words.
"The bugs are worse on the disposition than they are on the lungs, aren't they?"
"Well, it depends. Carol says they haven't hit mine yet." He lifted his head with boyish pride. "She ought to know. So I don't argue with her. I am willing to take her word for it."
Nancy smiled a little, a transforming smile that swept the discontent from her face and made her nearly beautiful. But it only lasted a moment.
"Oh, go on and smile. It did me good. You can't imagine how much better I felt directly."
"There's nothing to make me smile," cried Nancy hotly.
"You may smile at me," cried Carol gaily, as she ran in. "How do you do? You are Miss Tucker, aren't you? They were telling me about you at the office."
"Yes, I am Miss Tucker. Are you Mrs. Duke? You look too young for a minister's wife."
"Yes, I am Mrs. Duke, and I am not a bit too young."
"I asked them if I should call a doctor, and they said that could wait a while. First of all, they said, I must come to Room Six and meet the Dukes."
Carol looked puzzled. "They didn't tell me that. What did they want us to do to you?"