"What do you want?" Nan asked.
"Nothin'," replied the stranger.
"What were you peeping in for?"
"To see you," was the more frank reply.
"What for?" asked Nan.
"Ain't you the new gal?"
"I've newly come here, yes," admitted Nan.
"Well!"
"But I'm not such a sight, am I?" laughed the girl from Tillbury.
"But you are, lying there in the snow. You'll get your death of
cold. Get up"
The other did so. Beside the men's boots, which were patched and
old, she wore a woollen skirt, a blouse, and a shawl over her
head and shoulders. She shook the snow from her garments much as
a dog frees himself from water after coming out of a pond.
"It's too cold to talk with this window open. You're a neighbor,
aren't you?"
The girl nodded.
"Then come in," urged Nan. "I'm sure my aunt will let you."
The girl shook her head in a decided negative to this proposal.
"Don't want Marm Sherwood to see me," she said.
"Why not?"
"She told me not to come over after you come 'ithout I put on my
new dress and washed my hands and face."
"Well!" exclaimed Nan, looking at her more closely. "You seem to
have a clean face, at least."
"Yes. But that dress she 'gin me, my brother Bob took and put on
Old Beagle for to dress him up funny.
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