Her four years' absence at Forest Home had
separated her from the young people she had known, and she had had no
time to make new friends. The young bar-keeper at Slap Jack's, who always
watched for her to pass in the morning, the good-looking delivery boy who
sometimes brought parcels to Cemetery Street, the various youths with
whom she carried on casual flirtations on her way to and from work, were
her nearest approach to friends.
Dan, to be sure, still came for her every Saturday afternoon, but
Cemetery Street was across the city from Clarke's, and their time
together was short. Nance lived for these brief interviews, and then came
away from them more restless and dissatisfied than before. Dan didn't
look or talk or act like the heroes in the novels she was reading. He
never "rained fervent kisses on her pale brow," or told her that she was
"the day-star of his secret dreams." Instead he talked of eight-hour
laws, and minimum wage, and his numerous church activities. He was
sleeping at Mrs. Purdy's now, looking after the place while she was away
with her brother, and Nance was jealous of his new interests and new
opportunities.
As the long weeks stretched into long months, her restlessness grew into
rebellion. So this was the kind of job, she told herself bitterly, that
nice girls were supposed to hold. This was what Miss Stanley and Mrs.
Purdy and Mr. Demry approved. But they were old. They had forgotten. Dan
Lewis wasn't old. Why couldn't he understand? What right had he to insist
upon her sticking it out when he knew how lonesome and unhappy she was?
Dan didn't care, that was the trouble; he thought more of his old church
and the factory than he thought of her.
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