This was one of the standard long stories of Dunport with which old residents liked to regale newcomers, and handsome Jack Prince was the hero of a most edifying romance, being represented as a victim of the Prince pride, as his sister had been before him.  His life had been ruined, and he had begged his wretched wife at the last to bring him home to Dunport, alive or dead.  The woman had treated Miss Prince with shameful impudence and had disappeared afterward.  The child had been brought up with her own people, and it was understood that Miss Prince’s efforts to have any connection with them were all thwarted.  Lately it had become known that the girl’s guardian was a very fine man and was taking a great interest in her.  But the reader will imagine how this story grew and changed in different people’s minds.  Some persons insisted that Miss Prince had declined to see her brother’s child, and others that it was denied her.  It was often said in these days that Nan must be free to do as she chose, but it was more than likely that she had assumed the prejudices against her aunt with which she must have become most familiar.

As for Miss Prince herself, she had long ago become convinced that there was nothing to be done in this matter.  After one has followed a certain course for some time, everything seems to persuade one that no other is possible.  Sometimes she feared that an excitement and danger lurked in her future, but, after all, her days went by so calmly, and nearer things seemed so much more important than this vague sorrow and dread, that she went to and fro in the Dunport streets, and was courteous and kind in her own house, and read a sensible book now and then, and spent her time as benevolently and respectably as possible.  She was indeed an admirable member of society, who had suffered very much in her youth, and those who knew her well could not be too glad that her later years were passing far less unhappily than most people’s.

In the days when her niece had lately finished her first winter at the medical school, Miss Prince had just freed herself from the responsibility of some slight repairs which the house had needed.  She had been in many ways much more occupied than usual, and had given hardly a thought to more remote affairs.  At last there had come an evening when she felt at leisure, and happily Miss Fraley, one of her earliest friends, had come to pay her a visit.  The two ladies sat at the front windows of the west parlor looking out upon the street, while the hostess expressed her gratitude that the overturning of her household affairs was at an end, and that she was all in order for summer.  They talked about the damage and discomfort inflicted by masons, and the general havoc which follows a small piece of fallen ceiling.  Miss Prince, having made a final round of inspection just after tea, had ascertained that the last of the white dimity curtains and coverings were in their places upstairs in the bedrooms, and her love of order