CHAPTER II
Hopedale
The sun, shining through the tiny window panes, awakened Nan the next morning, and its brightness seemed a good omen. It thrilled her; she gave a squirm of contentment upon the hard pillows of the best bed in the best room of the Palace Hotel.
She never had awakened in a room in the least like it, and the noseless water-pitcher, the faded ingrain carpet, the pine chair repaired with baling wire, the hotel hair-brush chained safely to the wall, all were novelties which evoked from Nan a girlish giggle of amusement.
She was alive to the finger-tips with eager interest and anticipation, and she sprang out with an animation which she had not felt, in months.
At the lowered window she filled her lungs with the sweet, piñon-scented air, and began to sing bubbling notes without a tune like those of the water-ousel in early spring.
