"But you mustn't ask him, honey. It wouldn't be
right, and I couldn't accept.
"Don't you understand, honey, that I have some pride in the
matter? So have Papa Sherwood and Momsey. What they can't do
for me their own selves I wouldn't want anybody to do."
"Why, that sounds awfully silly to me, Nan!" said Bess. "Why not
take all you can get in this world? I'm sure I should."
"You don't know what you are saying," Nan returned seriously.
"And, then, you are not poor, so you can afford to say it, and
even do it."
"Poor! I'm getting to hate that word," cried Bess stormily. "It
never bothered me before, much. We're not poor and none of our
friends were poor. Not until those old mills closed. And now it
seems all I hear is about folks being POOR. I hate it!"
"I guess," said Nan ruefully, "you don't hate it half as much as
those of us who have to suffer it."
"I'm just going to find some way of getting you to Lakeview Hall,
my dear," Bess rejoined gloomily. "Why! I won't want to go
myself if you don't go, Nan."
Her friend thought she would better not tell Bess just then that
the prospect was that she, with her father and mother, would have
to leave Tillbury long before the autumn. Mr. Sherwood was
trying to obtain a situation in Chicago, in a machine shop.
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