“Well,” said Cora at last, when they had finished sipping their coffee, “I guess we’d better get up to bed. You need a good night’s rest,” she continued, addressing their guest, “and we’ll fix you up a bed in our rooms. In the morning you will be in better shape to tell us all you care to.”
“But you ought to know all about me before you do that,” replied Nina. “It isn’t fair to you. Perhaps after you have heard why I came you may regret taking me in.”
“We’ll never be sorry for that,” declared Cora emphatically; “and I feel sure you’ve never done anything you ought to be ashamed of.”
Nina’s face glowed with gratitude at the generous speech.
“Oh, I never have!” she cried. “But I’ve been accused of doing it, and that sometimes in the eyes of the world amounts to nearly the same thing.”
She had dropped all pretence to gypsy speech now, and spoke like any other American girl of good breeding and education.
“I think I’ll tell you now,” she cried impulsively. “That is, if you’re not too tired to hear it?”
“Not a bit,” answered Cora, who was inwardly delighted.
“I’m just dying to hear it, to tell the truth,” said Bess frankly.
“You are right,” began Nina, “in thinking that I am not a gypsy. I am an American girl and I was born in this State. And my name isn’t Nina either. But it will have to do for the present, because until this matter is cleared up, I don’t want to tell my real name.
“My mother and father died when I was quite young, and I went to live with an uncle. He was an unusual man, and though no doubt he was fond of me in a way, our natures were too different for us to get along well together. I was hot tempered and hasty and we often quarreled. It was after an exceedingly bitter quarrel that I made up my mind that I would run away from home and earn my own living.
“I got a position in a department store, with just enough pay to keep body and soul together. Again and again I was tempted to go back and make things up with my uncle. But that silly pride of mine kept me from doing it. Oh, how I wish I had!
“There had been a number of thefts in the store, and the manager was furious. He told all the employees that the next one who was caught would be sent to jail. Up to that time he had usually been content with discharging them.