prominence. But after the civil war had destroyed his fortune he had made little effort to rise superior to circumstances. Yet he had spent a great many hours talking to Nona about the true position which she should occupy and telling her long stories of her family's past. [Pg 89] Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the most beautiful and at the same time one of the most old-fashioned cities in the world. The tide of the new American life and spirit has in a measure swept past it. At least the new Americanism had never entered the doors of Nona's home during her father's lifetime. The old gentleman would have perished had he dreamed of his daughter's becoming a trained nurse. However, after his death Nona had felt a strong impulse toward the profession and so far had never regretted the step. But it was true that she had been greatly influenced by the possible romance and adventure in her decision to help with the Red Cross work in Europe. This did not mean that Nona was not tremendously in[Pg 90] earnest. But she was a girl who had read a great deal and dreamed many dreams. All her life poetry and passion would appeal to her more than cold arrangements of facts. There was no fault in this, it was merely a matter of temperament. Perhaps it was partly responsible for the soft light in Nona's brown eyes with their curiously golden iris. Also she had a fashion of opening her lips slightly when she was specially interested in a subject, as if she wished to breathe in the essence of the idea. [Pg 90] A part of Nona's dreaming was due to the fact that she had never known her mother after she was a small girl. More than this, she had been brought up in such curious ignorance of her mother's history. Any child in the world must have dreamed strange dreams under like circumstances. Often Nona used to have a vision of her mother coming to stand at her bedside. Always she appeared dressed in the white muslin and blue ribbons, in which she remembered seeing her on a special Sunday afternoon. [Pg 91] [Pg 91] Moreover, there was always the question of her mother's family to be pondered over. Naturally Nona believed that her mother must have been a great lady. Her imagination even went so far as to conceive of her as a foreign princess, who for reasons of state had been suddenly carried off to her own land.
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