"I like to skate, and I guess I can do it pretty well. My father taught me—to do figures and things. I don't know any one who can skate as well as my father!" said Nan, with pardonable pride.

"I used to skate a great deal when I lived in Holland," Miss Blake observed. "There every one is so expert that I used to feel like a great bungler. Seeing others do so beautifully made me feel as though I were particularly awkward, and I really did keep in the background because I was so ashamed of my clumsy performances. Perhaps though, that was only an excuse for my not being able to do better, and one ought not to offer excuses, ought one? Is there any pond near here on which we might skate?"

Nan's eyes gleamed.

"Why, yes," she said. "We could go to the Park, or if you didn't want to go there, there's a sort of a pond they call the 'Steamer,' quite near here. Lots of people skate on it, and it's lovely fun. And there's a place the other side of the Boulevard, where you can coast beautifully. It's a jolly hill. We take our bobs there, and—the boys and me—and—"

"I," suggested Miss Blake, casually—"the boys and I."

Nan blinked her eyes. The correction, however, passed by unresented.

"The folks here think it isn't nice for me to bob, and—and things. They think it's rough!"

"Perhaps," ventured Miss Blake, "that may be because they have seen it done in a rough way, or by rough persons. You know a great deal depends upon how you do a thing."

Again Nan blinked her eyes. She was thinking as she had the night before:

"Pooh! I can manage her," while Miss Blake, quite unconscious of what was going on in her pupil's mind, continued: "I think if the weather holds, we may have some very good sport, you and I. Don't you think so? And now run upstairs and smooth your hair and wash your hands, for Delia will have luncheon ready very shortly, and one must make one's self tidy for meals, you know."

And then a very singular thing occurred. Nan found herself on the stairs in obedience to the governess' command almost before she was aware, and she proceeded to make herself tidy, with no thought of refusal at all.

But at luncheon came the first tug-of-war.

Nan was about to repeat her performance of the morning, namely, to push her chair aside when she had finished eating and unceremoniously leave the table.

"Oh, pardon me!" interposed Miss Blake, quickly. "Please remain at the table! You were excused at breakfast, but I am sure there is no necessity for your running away again. We must pay each other the respect to remain seated until we have both finished eating. You see, I am still drinking my tea, and you must allow me another of Delia's delicious cookies."

It was all said very gently, but Nan recognized beneath all the kind suggestion an unmistakable tone of command.

She thrust her chair back still further.

"I don't want to wait!" she answered, dryly. "I hate sitting at the table after I'm through. You can eat all the cookies you like, only I don't want to wait."

"Ah, but, my dear, I want you to wait," Miss Blake said. "I demand of you no more than I myself am willing to do. We must be courteous to each other, and if you had not finished eating I should most certainly remain until you had. I expect you to do no less for me."

"Well, I can't help it! I don't want to stay and I—I won't!" declared Nan, with a sudden burst of defiance.

"Very well," returned Miss Blake, calmly. "Of course, you are too old to be forced to act in a ladylike manner if you do not desire to do so. But, equally, I am too old to be treated with discourtesy and disrespect. If you are willing to behave in a rude manner and bear the reproach that you will deserve, why, well and good—or, rather, ill and bad! But I cannot sit at table with any but gentle mannered people. Unless you wish to behave as becomes a lady, we must take our meals apart."

There was no smile now on the governess' face. Nan suddenly got the impression that perhaps it would not be quite "as easy as pie" to "manage" Miss Blake. It seemed to the girl that for the first time in her life she had encountered determination outside of her own. It challenged her from every line in the governess' little figure. For a moment she hesitated before it. Then, gathering herself together and summoning her dumb demon, she gave her shoulders a sullen shrug and left the room without a word.

Miss Blake finished her luncheon as though nothing had happened. Then she rose, and, going into the kitchen, said a few words to Delia—words that caused the good woman to blink hard for a second and then exclaimed:

"Yes'm. I will. It hurts me to cross the child, but I s'pose it is best. You have a brave spirit to set yourself against Nan. I wouldn't have the stren'th, let alone the will. But I s'pose you know what you can do."

"Oh, yes, Delia," replied the governess, with conviction. "I know very well what I can do, but I shouldn't know if I did not have you to help me. We're both conspiring for Nan's good, and we have to work together."

The rest of the afternoon Miss Blake spent in unpacking her trunk and in disposing of its contents. Beside the trunk there was a cumbersome case, a hamper, and a large crate such as is used for the shipment of bicycles. Delia gazed at it in wonderment. Did the governess use a wheel? If so, what would Mrs. Newton say? Delia trembled at the thought, and eyed the box with especial interest as it was being carried down stairs and deposited in the basement hall closet.

Nan wandered in about twilight and found the house cheerfully lighted and warm and comfortable. There was a fire in the library grate, and she threw herself into a chair before it and lounged there luxuriously, while above her head the new governess was tripping to and fro, "putting her room to rights," Nan suspected. She wondered about that room. She would have liked to go up there and see if those skates had arrived, but of course she could not do that. The governess must not think she cared to see her when she wasn't forced to. No, indeed!

Later Miss Blake came down stairs, and drawing her chair nearer the lamp, commenced to sew. Presently up came Delia.

"Miss Blake," she said, with an emphasis Nan noticed and did not like, "your dinner is served."

Nan jumped up with an exaggerated yawn. Her hair was rough and disordered, her frock was rumpled and untidy, her hands were obviously soiled. Miss Blake remarked on none of these things. She laid her bit of needle-work upon the table and quietly passed down stairs before Nan.

The table was set for one, and the governess seated herself before the solitary place.

Nan stood at the side of the table in stiff and silent amazement.

"Where's my place, Delia?" she called, ignoring Miss Blake, except for an angry flash of her eyes.

But Miss Blake was not to be ignored.

"I thought you had decided to dine alone," she said. "At least, that was the impression you conveyed to me at luncheon. If you have changed your mind, Delia can easily set your place. Shall she do so?"

The question was simple, but Nan knew what it involved. She was speechless with rage. Her face alternately flushed and paled, while her lips twitched spasmodically.

"I—I—hate you!" she cried at last, with breathless vehemence. "You've no right here. When my father comes he'll send you right away. You see if he don't!"

She flung herself in a paroxysm of anger out of the room.

Miss Blake ate her dinner, it is true, but perhaps it was scarcely strange that her relish of it was not great. Every mouthful seemed to choke her. Delia saw her hand tremble as she raised her tumbler of water to her lips.

"This'll make you sick, dearie, this striving with Nan. She'll never give in! Her will is that strong."

But the governess shook her head.

Nan ate no dinner that night, and the next day she slept late; that is, she remained in bed late. Lying there cross and unhappy, she heard sounds of voices in Miss Blake's room. Occasionally there were other sounds as well; sounds of hammering and the moving of furniture across the floor.

When Nan was "good and ready" she rose and strolled down stairs with an air of nonchalance that was for Miss Blake's benefit, should she chance to see.

She found the dining-room in perfect order and the kitchen deserted. No breakfast, hot and tempting, awaited her as of old. Delia was evidently upstairs, and Nan was too stubborn to call her down. She prowled about the closets and cupboards until she discovered some cold oatmeal, a bit of meat also cold, and a slice of bread. These, with a cup of chilling milk, she gulped down hastily and with a thorough disrelish.

"Ugh!" she exclaimed, "how I hate it—and her!"

It was a cheerless morning. The temperature had risen and a thick rain was falling. There was nothing to do out-of-doors so Nan remained within. It was Friday, and one of Delia's sweeping days. She was shut up in the draughty parlor with a mob-cap on her head "cleaning for dear life," as she expressed it. After a brief experience of the cold and discomfort of open windows and clouds of dust, Nan gave up trying to talk to Delia and wandered out of the parlor as disconsolately as she had wandered into it. By and by she heard Miss Blake's door open and close and saw the governess come forth, leave the house, and walk rapidly down the street. She turned in at the Newton's gate and disappeared behind the vestibule door. Nan had flown to the window to gaze after her.

"Whatever can she want there," wondered the girl.

The question bothered her. She had not been able to get direct news of Ruth's condition because she had not dared inquire again after the way she had been treated, but in a round-about manner she had heard that the child had a fever.

"What fever?" she wondered. "Do people die of fever? If she dies will that be because I left her on the ground while I ran to get that milkman to help carry her home?"

Miss Blake was not gone long, but it was luncheon-time when she returned.

"Ah, good morning!" she said, pleasantly, to Nan, who happened to be in the hall. "I have pleasant news for you. Your little friend Ruth Newton is better, and her mamma says she would be grateful to you and me if we would come in once in a while and help her to amuse the poor child. Will you go with me to-morrow? Mrs. Newton said particularly that she hoped you would."

A curious expression flitted across Nan's face.

"Mrs. Newton hates me," she announced. "She doesn't want me to see Ruth."

Miss Blake drew off her gloves carefully.

"I have explained certain matters to Mrs. Newton, Nan," she said, "and she is quite satisfied that she was partly mistaken in her judgment of you the other day. She says that she is willing to apologize for some of her accusations, and she has written you a little note. Now, come, and we will both go down to luncheon. I see Delia is here to tell us it is served."

"She takes it for granted I'll go," thought Nan, and indeed she went quite willingly, and what was more, remained respectfully seated in her place until Miss Blake gave her permission to depart by rising herself.



CHAPTER VI

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

"I think, Delia," said the governess, as Nan was about to go upstairs, "if you have an ax, or something of the sort, I'll try to unbox my bicycle."

Nan came to an abrupt halt. Bicycle! The word went through her with an electric thrill, and sent her blood tingling. Then she dragged herself unwillingly away. What had she to do with the bicycle of a woman she hated.

"O Nan!" Miss Blake exclaimed, before the girl's lagging footsteps had carried her halfway up the staircase, "I'm sure your strong young arms can help us with this big elephant. Will you lend a hand?"

Now could the governess have suspected that that was precisely what Nan had been longing to do? But she could not have lingered unless she had been given the excuse by Miss Blake herself. Had the request been made to serve as that excuse?

Nan did not stop to question. She came flinging down stairs, two steps at a time, and Miss Blake and Delia smiled above her head as she bent down, wrenching and tugging with her main strength at the boards and stubborn nails, too excited to know that half the force she used would have served her better.

"There! that's my bicycle!" announced Miss Blake, displaying the beautiful machine with the pride of a possessor, when the last stay had been unscrewed, and the slender wheel stood revealed in all the glory of its spotless nickel-plate and rubber tires.

Nan gazed at it in speechless admiration. It had been the dream of her life to own such a machine, but she had pleaded for one in vain. Mr. Turner had explained to her that what money he held in trust for her was no more than served to pay for her running expenses.

"You know your father is not a rich man," he had said, "and lately he has met with losses. He wishes you to be brought up under home influences rather than at a boarding-school among strangers. He desires you to be well educated, and naturally all this costs. Your father is willing to make many sacrifices that you may be well provided for, but he is not able to indulge you in a matter like this of the bicycle. I wish I did not have to refuse you, but I think with him, that your most important need should be supplied first, and if after that little remains for mere indulgence, you must be satisfied. By and by you will see that his course is best, if you do not see it already."

But Nan had never been able to feel that it was best that she should not have a bicycle. Now that the new governess had come and had proved so "horrid," she felt it still less. "Half the money she gets would buy me a first-rate safety," she had thought often and often and often, as she groaned over her father's perversity.

But here was one of the wonderful affairs actually in the house, and if it did not belong to her, what of that? What was it the governess was just saying?

"I am quite sure you could use this wheel if we should shift the saddle up a bit, that is, if you care to ride. As soon as the ground is clear I will teach you if you like."

Nan's face was radiant. "Oh, I know how," she said. "I've practiced lots on—on—a person's I know. Only it wasn't a—a—girl's wheel. But I can ride."

Miss Blake was rubbing down the slender spokes with a piece of chamois skin.

"You are welcome to use mine, then," she said simply.

Nan choked out a meagre "Thank you." It was not a gracious acknowledgment, but the governess accepted it, and really felt a glow of satisfaction in having called out even so much as an acceptance of her favor from her arbitrary young charge.

"Small favors thankfully received," she thought with a smile at her own humility.

Nan stood leaning against the wall with her hands behind her, watching the manoeuvres of the leathern rag as it flashed up and down the nickel spokes and around and about the hubs, guided by the dexterous hand of the little governess.

"Yes, I think we can pass many a jolly hour on this machine," resumed Miss Blake, "after the ground is clear of snow, and after we are clear of our lessons. We'll begin our studies on Monday, Nan. That will be commencing with the new week, and we must be very conscientious about our work before we indulge in any play."

"There!" thought Nan, with a rush of antagonism, "I might have known she'd make some kind of a fuss before she'd let me use it. I guess she's sorry she promised in the first place, and wants to kind of back out of it. Oh, well, I might have known. Now she'll pile on lessons and things till there's no time for anything else. That's her way of getting out of it."

But she made no comment. She stood kicking her heel against the surbase, silently watching the sparkling machine. Presently she turned and stalked upstairs without a word.

Delia gave Miss Blake an apologetic glance, but the governess composedly rose, and, stowing her property safely away against the closet wall, closed the door upon it and with a kind word to the woman beside her went upstairs as though nothing had happened.

She knew what was in Nan's mind. She could read it as distinctly as if the sudden wrinkles on her forehead and the quick set of her obstinate jaw had been printed text.

"Poor child!" thought the governess, "how she hates study and—me. How she rebels against restraint. So she thinks I am trying to take back my word. No wonder that makes her furious."

She went into her room and closed the door, but after a moment she came back and opened it again.

"Nan might feel shut out," she said to herself, and so she left it standing invitingly ajar that in case the girl cared to come in she would not have to knock. She smiled to herself as she did it. She knew well enough Nan would not care to come in. "Still there might be a chance!"—she left the door open on the chance.

The more Nan thought of Delia's baseness the more she inwardly raged against it. She sat in her own room with her feet over the register and munched caramels and nursed her grievance all the afternoon. Delia was miserable. She had tried by every means in her power to win at least a look from the girl, but all her attempts were repelled and she was treated with an overbearance that cut her to the quick. At last she could stand it no longer. She left her work and went upstairs "to have it out with Nan" and be done with it.

She knocked repeatedly at her bedroom door, but the girl obstinately refused to utter the word of admittance. Delia was not to be daunted, however, by this, and at last, turning the knob, she walked boldly in and confronted Nan squarely.

"See here, Nan," she began without waiting, "I want to know what's the matter with you that you treat me so? Me that has waited on you hand and foot and tended you night and day since you was a little baby?"

The girl did not deign to raise her eyes from her book—or else they were so rapidly filling with tears that she did not dare to do so.

Delia gulped. "Can't you answer a civil question?" she faltered, trying to be firm and failing utterly.

Nan cast her book to the floor and sprang up to face the woman with blazing cheeks and eyes that flashed angry fire.

"You'd better ask me what's the matter, Delia Connor!" she burst out in a trembling voice. "As if you didn't know! Do you s'pose I'll bear everything? It's bad enough—your being such an awful turn-coat! You went over to her side the first thing, and every time she bosses me you just stand there and let her do it and never say a word. You let her order me about like everything and never stand up for me a bit. Her—a perfect stranger! Somebody you never saw in all your life before! But that isn't the worst of it! Do you s'pose I'm going to stand your coming to my door and listening at the key-hole when I was rehearsing and then going and telling on me—telling her all I was going to do to her, I'd like to know? You just wanted to get on the right side of her, and it was the meanest thing I ever heard of in all my life. You came and peeked at me when I was rehearsing and then went and told her, and I s'pose you both laughed and had a fine time over it. You thought you were very smart, didn't you? But you got there too soon, Delia Connor, for I had made up my mind I wouldn't do it, so there! But now you've both been so mean, I don't care who knows what I was going to do. I hope you told her that I don't want her here. I hope you told her every bit of that thing I learned by heart on purpose to recite to her. I hope you repeated every word of it. It's true and I hope she knows it. I hope—"

"For the land's sake, Nan, do be still," broke out Delia at last after a dozen futile attempts to stem the tide of the girl's anger. "I didn't listen nor peek nor anything, and you scream so loud she'll hear every word you say. You—now be quiet and let me speak—you walked in your sleep last night. You went into her room and said off a whole lot of balderdash to her—enough to set her against you for the rest of her life—if she ever finds out you really meant it."

Nan gave Delia an imploring, frightened look.

"Delia," she gasped, breathlessly, "do you—do you think she heard?"

Delia shook her head.

"Couldn't say for the life of me," she replied. "Her door may have been open when I came up; I didn't notice."

Nan looked the picture of dismay. "Wait a minute!—I'll go see!" she whispered earnestly, and tip-toed noiselessly into the hall. A second later she returned, radiant with reassurance.

"Her door is tight shut, and she's making so much noise inside her room she couldn't possibly have heard. Sounds as if she was dragging trunks around or something."

"Perhaps she's packing to go 'way," suggested Delia, with a grain of malice.

Nan fairly jumped with—well, if it wasn't joy it was something equally as moving in its way. "Oh, no, no!" she cried, in a sudden fever of excitement. "I don't want her to leave—like that. Just think how awful it would be to have her leave—like that! Can't you go to her and say I'm—you're good friends with her. Delia, won't you please go and tell her I didn't really mean to say off that speech at her. I learned it before she came, and I meant to recite it, but when I found that she was different—so little and kind of—different, I thought it would be mean to do it, and I gave it up. Do go and tell her, Delia, please, and oh, won't you hurry?"

"Now see here, Nan," interposed the woman. "Our best plan is to wait and see what she is going to do. If she hasn't heard, it's all right, and telling her would only put the fat in the fire. On the other hand, if she has heard and is packing up to go 'way, why, it wouldn't do much good, I'm afraid, to try to stop her. With all being such a lady and so gentle in her ways, she's got a mind of her own—I can see that—and you won't be like to get her to change it. But she'll tell you good-bye before she leaves, she's too much of a lady not to, no matter how she feels, and then you can say your say, and I promise you faithful I'll back you up."

Nan saw the wisdom of Delia's counsel, and tried to content herself to wait. But the suspense of every minute was awful, and she felt herself growing frenzied under the strain. After a time the commotion in the next room ceased, and all was quiet as the grave. "She's getting on her hat now," gasped Nan. "She'll go away and think I'm a heathen and all sorts of horrid things. And she hasn't got any friends or folks of her own, and no house to go to but this. And I s'pose she's awfully poor, because she wouldn't be a governess if she wasn't, and oh, dear! I don't want to have any one be a beggar, and turned out of the only roof they've got over their heads on my account. That's what makes me feel so bad, Delia. That's the only thing. If she will go on her own account I'll—I'll be glad, but—oh, she mustn't go this way!"

Delia turned away her face to hide a smile.

"There's nothing to do but wait," she insisted. "If I go in there and tell her, and she hasn't heard, why it would only give you away; don't you see?"

Nan let herself down in her rocking-chair with a dismal drop. "O dear!" she cried, "I never saw anything like it! The way things go wrong in this house! It's just perfectly horrid! I wish I was with my father, I do so! I guess it's nicer in India than it is here, anyway; and I'm sick and tired of living cooped up in this old stuffy place. So there!"

Delia dusted some imaginary dust off the table with the corner of her apron, and went down stairs to finish up her work.

In the street below the huckster was yelling "Chestnuts! Fresh-roasted chestnuts!" The little charcoal oven in his push-cart sent out a shrill, continuous whistle, and Nan had an impulse to throw something at him. What business had he to come here and make such a racket that she couldn't hear what was going on in the next room. He passed slowly down the street, his call and the whistle of his oven growing fainter and fainter, and finally fading quite away as he disappeared in the distance. Nan pricked up her ears. Surely the sounds she heard were those of moving feet in the next room. Back and forth they went, now nearer, that was to the closet, now further away again, that must be to the bureau. What could the governess be doing? The lid of her trunk was dropped, and Nan could distinctly hear the click of the catches as they fell in place. There was no further doubt about it! Miss Blake was going. A moment later, and before Nan could collect her wits, the door of the next room was briskly opened and closed, and the governess, hatted and cloaked, sped quickly from the house.

Nan flew to the balusters with a hasty cry upon her lips, but was just in time to see the door swing heavily to; and that was all. She flung herself down stairs two steps at a time.

"There now, Delia Connor," she cried, bursting into the kitchen with such vehemence that the very tins rattled on their shelves. "There, now! What did I tell you? She's gone—Miss Blake's gone. Trunks packed—! Everything's packed! She'll send men to get them. She's gone clean off. I told you what it would be, and you wouldn't go and speak to her. And now my father will be disgraced, and Mr. Turner will blame me, and—it's all your fault, and I'll tell my father; so there!"

Delia's face paled suddenly. She set her lips together tight.

"It's well you have some one to lay the blame on, child!" she said shortly, and went upstairs without another word. Nan did not care to follow her into the governess' room, but stood outside and waited to hear her verdict when she should have examined the premises.

"Well?" asked the girl, eagerly, as soon as she came out.

"Her trunk's shut and locked, that's certain!"

"Then she's gone for good!"

"She's gone. There ain't a doubt about that!"

"You said she would surely say good-bye, Delia Connor, you know you did. You said no matter how she felt, she was such a lady she'd be certain to say good-bye!"

"Well, and I really thought so. I believe now she'd have said good-bye, if—"

"If I hadn't been such a—brat? Say it right out, Delia! You mean it and you might as well say what you think," broke in the girl bitterly.

Delia turned on her heel and stalked grimly down stairs. A second later she heard a rush of flying feet behind her, and the next moment two arms were locked about her neck.

"Poor old Delia," cried Nan, in one of her sudden bursts of remorse. "I'm the horridest girl that ever lived! I know it as well as you do, and if you weren't the patientest thing in the world you wouldn't stand it for a minute. But don't you go away from me too, Delia! Please don't! Honest Injun, I'll try to behave! Cross my heart I will. And I tell you this much, I feel just awfully about Miss Blake. I shouldn't wonder a bit but it would snow tonight, and she hasn't a place to go and no money, and—O dear! I feel like a person that ought to be in jail!"

Delia extricated herself gently from the clinging arms. "What makes you think Miss Blake's as poverty-stricken as that?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," responded the girl. "But I just feel she is. And she is so little too. She looked so glad to get into this house that I guess she never had much of a place to stay before."

"She don't dress like a person that's next-door to a beggar," mused Delia.

"No, she doesn't. She has really pretty things, hasn't she? But I guess they're made over and cast-off, or something. Maybe the lady she lived with last gave them to her?" speculated Nan.

"Maybe she did," said Delia.

The two made their way slowly down to the kitchen. It was beginning to grow dark and the dinner must be prepared.

"I never in all my life saw such little hands and feet," the girl pursued. "And she's dreadfully particular about them. There's never a speck on her fingers that she doesn't run right up and scrub them, and she wears the cunningest slippers I ever saw."

"I guess she comes of nice folks," said Delia, as she began to peel the potatoes.

"Wonder why she doesn't stay with them then?" put in Nan.

"Perhaps they're dead."

Nan pondered. Her own motherless life had given her a very tender sympathy for those whose "folks" were dead. For the first time she felt sorry for Miss Blake. She was uneasy and distressed. It made her shift about uncomfortably in her chair.

"Goodness me!" she ejaculated impatiently at last, and then one of her wild impulses took possession of her and she ran frantically up into her own room and flung on her coat and hat.

"The whole thing's as plain as preaching. Why didn't I think of it before?" she said to herself, with a shake of impatience. "Mr. Turner told Miss Blake if she was worried or anything to go to him. She hasn't any money, and she's left here, so of course that's where she is. I'll go and bring her back."

The front door opened and shut with a bang, and Nan was out in the street alone. As she scudded down the pavement the electric lights suddenly gleamed out pale and vivid from their lofty globes, and sent wavering shadows flashing across her path.

"It's pretty late and it'll be dark as a pocket in a little while," thought she; but that did not detain her, and she raced on, putting block after block between her and home in her ardor to make reparation and to lighten her heart of its weight of compunction.



CHAPTER VII

OPEN CONFESSION

Nan knew the way to Mr. Turner's house perfectly, though she had not been able to give Mrs. Newton the street and number. She was observing and clear-headed, and could have been trusted to find her way about the entire city alone, but her father had often cautioned Delia and the girl herself against putting her power to the test, and so it happened that until now she had never been any considerable distance away from home after twilight without a companion. The way was perfectly familiar to her—but it had never seemed so interminably long. She could have taken a car, but in her haste to get off she had forgotten her pocketbook. She saw the "trolleys" fly past her in quick succession, and it seemed to her they whizzed jeeringly at her as they sped. She was by nature so fearless that even if the street had not been thronged she would not have been afraid. As it was she was only alarmed lest she would get to Mr. Turner's and find Miss Blake gone.

She hurried on breathlessly, fairly skipping with impatience and wondering what explanation she could give the lawyer in case the governess had not told him the real reason of her departure. Somehow it flashed into Nan's mind that Miss Blake would not expose her. She was busied with this reflection as she turned off the broad, well-lighted thoroughfare into the dimmer side-street upon which Mr. Turner lived, and she ran up the steps of his house with the question still unsettled. It was not a moment before the door was opened to her and she was admitted to the warm, luxuriously furnished drawing-room. It was Nan's ideal of a house: "all full of curtains and soft carpets and beautiful things." She seated herself before the burning log-fire with a sensation of deep well-being—only it was a little over-shadowed by her worry about the governess.

"Well, my little lady, and what brings you here at this time of day?" was Mr. Turner's greeting, as he strode across the room to meet her.

"O Mr. Turner!" began Nan, bluntly, "I came to see you about Miss Blake. I want to know—I wonder if you—"

"Indeed! And how is that charming lady? You must tell her I had hoped to see her before this, but I have been unusually busy, and every moment has been taken up. Now tell me, isn't it as I said? Hasn't she completely won your heart? Aha! I see she has! I see she has!"

Nan flushed and stammered, and did not reply. Inwardly, she was in a turmoil. Either Miss Blake had not come here at all or the lawyer was trying to baffle her. And if Miss Blake had not come here, then where was she? A sort of dumb terror took hold of the girl and shook her from head to foot.

"You see I was right," pursued the lawyer, cheerfully. "I knew you would surrender to her the first thing. Every one does. I think I never knew any one who was more universally loved. Now, how can I help you, my dear? Give you some extra pin-money to buy Miss Blake a Christmas present, eh? Is that it?"

Nan caught at the suggestion eagerly as being a way out of her difficulty, and nodded a gulping assent.

"Well, you needn't have traveled all this distance for such a simple matter, my dear," he assured her genially. "And after dark, too! A note would have served, you know; a note would have served. But I'm glad you like her so well, and you shall have the money at once. Your father would be delighted I am sure."

It was only after Nan had been gone some time that Mr. Turner remembered with a start that she was alone and that it was night. It was too late then to overtake her, so he had to resign himself with the thought that the girl was admirably self-reliant, and that her way lay almost entirely along well-lit and busy avenues.

The thought of danger did not occupy Nan for a moment. Her only fear now was for the governess. If she wasn't at Mr. Turner's, then where was she? She asked herself this question over and over again. The girl blushed as she thought of the untruth she had been guilty of in implying that the lawyer's suggestion had been her motive in coming to him. She sharpened her pace, as if to outstrip the memory of her misdeed, but it, with her other worry, seemed to pursue her, and presently her imagination so quickened at the thought that she actually fancied she heard some one behind keeping step with her. She broke into a brisk run. Clap! clap! came the sound of hastening feet behind her. With a sort of tortured courage she slackened her pace. Whatever was following her also took a slower gait. She cast a furtive look over her shoulder and gave a horrified gasp as her eyes squarely encountered two other eyes, which were fixed upon her own in an insulting leer from beneath the rim of a rakish felt hat which was worn tilted on the side of a very unprepossessing head. The eyes, bad as they were, proved the best feature in a thoroughly vicious face, and for the first time in her life Nan felt frightened—chokingly frightened. She would have rushed on, but a stealthy hand held her back.

"Don't try to run away from me, little lady!" said an unsteady voice in her ear in a tone that was intended to seem engaging. "Don't try to run away from me, if you please. I wouldn't hurt you for the world, no, indeed."

Nan shook herself free from the disgusting touch and hurried on without a word. Her hateful shadow kept abreast with her.

"You ain't afraid of me, are you?" he asked reproachfully.

Nan made no response. Her feet seemed to cling to the pavement. Every time she lifted one it was with an effort.

"Oh, come now," whined the voice in her ear, "don't go on like this. I ain't going to hurt you. I'm only a poor man who would be grateful for a penny or two. By the way, where's your pocket-book?"

Nan leaped suddenly aside, and as she did so she missed her footing, and a cry of pain burst from her lips. A sharp pang shot from her ankle to her knee, and when she tried to take another step she found the darting agony returned. But stop she could not. Her face grew gray and lined with misery as she dragged forward, saving her injured ankle as much as she could, but always having to torture it intolerably with every onward limp. Her persecutor caught up with her promptly, and she cast beseeching looks for deliverance on every side, which the hurrying, preoccupied crowd was too intent on its own affairs to see. If only she could see a policeman! She knew what she would do. She would make believe she was going past him and then suddenly veer about and say, "Officer, this man is annoying me!" and before he had time to realize what she had done the rowdy would be arrested. But no policeman was in sight, and her fine scheme could not be carried out. Suddenly in the midst of her agony of mind and body her heart gave a wild bound of unspeakable relief.

"Miss Blake! Miss Blake!" she almost shrieked.

"Nan!"

The little governess was beside her in a flash, her own face almost as white and seamed as the girl's.



"O Miss Blake! this man—make him go away; make some one send him away. He's annoying me—and my foot!"

The governess grew if possible a shade paler. "What man?" she demanded sharply, "Where?"

Nan could not speak. She indicated with a mute gesture. Miss Blake looked behind her, but if there had actually been such a man as the girl described he must certainly have taken to his heels. They were standing alone in the midst of the hurrying crowd.

"O Nan!" cried the governess, not stopping to argue the question, "where have you been? Delia and I have been frantic with worry. She is out now hunting for you. She went one way and I another."

Nan could not reply. The torture in her ankle grew fiercer with every movement. She shook her head silently and limped on.

"You are hurt! You are in pain!" cried Miss Blake, now for the first time really realizing her condition.

Nan nodded dumbly.

"Take my arm; no, lean on my shoulder! There, that's better! Bear down as hard as you can and use me as your crutch! I'm strong. I won't give out."

And a right good support she proved. Happily they were but a stone's throw from home, and it was not long before Nan was comfortably settled on the library lounge, luxuriously surrounded by all sorts of downy cushions and having her injured ankle bound in soothing cloths by the tenderest of hands. Delia, full of sympathy and the desire to help, was bustling about nervously, tripping over bandages and upsetting bottles of liniment, but meaning so well all the while that one could not discourage her.

"It is only a strain. You have turned your ankle badly and the muscles have been wrenched, but I don't think it is an actual sprain," said Miss Blake, consolingly. "However, if the pain is still bad to-morrow, we'll have a doctor in to look at it. Do you still have Dr. Milbank, Delia?"

Nan sat bolt upright with surprise.

"How funny!" she cried. "However in the world did you know Dr. Milbank was our doctor? Why, we've had him for years and years. Ever since I was born and before, too. But how could you know?"

Delia hurried out of the room muttering something about the dinner, and Miss Blake bent her head over the bandage she was rolling.

"He lives so near," she replied haltingly.

"I've seen his sign often as I passed and—and—perhaps that is why I thought he might be your physician. He's so convenient—within call. It is hard to tell what makes one jump at conclusions sometimes."

Nan sank back among her cushions not half satisfied. "Dr. Pardee lives near, too. Just as near as Dr. Milbank does," she persisted.

The governess made no response, and just then Delia came staggering in under the weight of a huge brass tray which she bore in her arms.

Miss Blake jumped to her feet. "We're going to have a dinner-party up here to-night, Nan," she said. "Won't it be fun?" and she set to work unfolding a strange foreign-looking stand that Nan had never seen before and upon which Delia carefully placed the tray.

"Why, what a dandy little table it makes!" exclaimed Nan, admiringly. "Where did it come from?"

"I brought it from London, but it was made in India," explained Miss Blake.

Nan's eyes softened. "Where papa is!" she murmured softly to herself. "You have lots of nice things," she added, after a moment. "These pillows are downright daisies. I s'pose they belong to you."

The governess served her with soup. "They are yours whenever you care to use them," she returned in her quiet way.

"It's jolly having dinner up here," said Nan, not quite knowing how to respond to such a generous offer.

"Yes, isn't it?" assented the governess.

"Mrs. Newton don't use her basement for a dining-room, and neither does Mr. Turner. I wish we didn't. I think it would be perfectly fine if we could have ours up here, too."

"Why couldn't you?"

The girl leaned forward with a look of real interest in her face.

"Do you think we might?" she asked eagerly.

"I don't see why not. The books might be shifted to the other room. This might be re—well, re-arranged, and I'm sure it would make a charming dining-room."

"But that ugly old glass extension back there!" protested Nan in disgust. "Who wants to look at a lot of old trunks and broken-up things when one is eating? If we could only pull it down."

Miss Blake considered a moment.

"Why not take all the old trunks and broken-up things out entirely and make a conservatory of it. It faces the south. Plants would grow beautifully there."

Nan clapped her hands. "Why, that's perfectly splendiferous," she cried. "I never should have thought of it. I say, Miss Blake, let's do it right away, will you? I love flowers."

"Would you take care of them?" demanded the governess with a thoughtful look.

"Uh-huh!" nodded Nan, heartily. "I guess I would!"

"Very well, then," returned Miss Blake encouragingly, "I'll think about it. Perhaps Delia wouldn't consent. You know there is no dumb-waiter in the house, and if she had to carry up all the dishes at every meal, it would more than double her work."

Nan's face fell. "O dear!" she complained. "What a horrid old house! Can't do a single thing with it! It would have been such fun to change everything about!"

Miss Blake laughed. "Oh, if that was all your reason for wanting the improvements," she retorted. "I thought you wanted to gratify your sense of the beautiful."

"Well, I do," declared Nan.

"Then we'll see what can be done," and the governess set down her glass of water with a very knowing smile.

After dinner was eaten and Delia had carried away the tray and Miss Blake removed the wonderful folding stand, the governess looked up suddenly and said with unusual gravity:

"Nan, while I am here I hope you will never run out after dark alone again. It is dangerous. Do you understand me, my dear?"

The girl's eyes dropped. Yes, she understood perfectly. When the governess spoke in that low, decided voice it would have been hard to mistake her meaning.

"I had to go to-night," Nan answered, in a suddenly sullen voice.

"If you had waited a few moments I could have, and most willingly would have, gone with you. Never hesitate to ask me. I am always at your service. That is what I am here for."

Nan hesitated. "I—I thought you had gone away—for good," she stammered, lamely.

Miss Blake flushed. "What made you think I had gone away for good?" she asked, slowly repeating the girl's words.

Nan shook her head and gulped.

"I was in my room," continued the governess, after a pause, "and I heard—"

Nan put out both hands. "I know it! I know it!" she gasped. "But I didn't mean what I said—I didn't, honestly and truly. Before you came I learned it off, and I meant to say it, but that was before I saw you. I feel different now, and I hope—I hope—"

Miss Blake's hand was laid quietly on hers. "Wait a moment, Nan. Don't go on till you know what I was going to say. You seem to be trying to explain something that perhaps you might regret later. You think I overheard something you would rather I did not know? What I was going to say is this: I was in my room this afternoon and I heard a man crying 'Chestnuts!' It carried me back to the time when I was a little girl and used to roast them in this very—" she hesitated, then added slowly, "town. So I went out to buy some, that we might have a little jollification together with nuts and apples and perhaps a cookie or two, if Delia would give them to us. That is why I went out."

Nan twisted her fingers and looked down. "And I went out because you did," she faltered. "I thought you had gone away, and I went to Mr. Turner's to bring you back—if you would come. Say, now, didn't you hear what I said to Delia? I was awfully mad, and I guess I spoke out loud enough so folks on the next block could have heard. Honest now, didn't you?"

Miss Blake did not answer at once, and Nan could see that a struggle of some sort was going on in her mind. When she raised her face her eyes were very grave.

"Yes, Nan, I did hear!" she confessed, honestly.

The girl's cheeks blazed with sudden shame.

"And yet you weren't going to leave?" she said. "You were only going to do a kindness to me?"

Miss Blake shook her head.

"Dear Nan," she answered, smiling wistfully, "a good soldier never runs away for a mere wound. He stays on the field until he has won his battle or—until—he is mortally hurt. I do not think you will ever wish to cut me as deeply as that, and so—and so—I will stay until—the general orders me off the field. The day I hear that your father is to come back, that day I will resign my position in this house. Until then, however, you must reconcile yourself to my presence here, and I think we should both be much happier if you would try to do so at once, my dear."



CHAPTER VIII

NAN'S HEROINE

The strain Nan had given her ankle proved more serious than either she or Miss Blake had expected. It threatened to keep her chained to the sofa for days to come, and the girl's only comfort lay in the thought that now, of course, the governess would not force the question of study, and after she was up and about again she might be able to dispose of it altogether, and save herself any more worry on that score.

But Monday came, and, true to her word, Miss Blake appeared in the library after breakfast with an armful of school-books, to which she kept Nan fastened until luncheon time. It was perfectly clear that there was no escape. Miss Blake was armed with authority, and the girl knew herself to be under control. She fretted against it so persistently that if the governess had not had an enduring patience she must have despaired over and over again under the strain of Nan's sullen tempers, fierce outbreaks, and lazy moods. There were moments when the girl seemed to be fairly tractable, but there was no knowing when the whim would seize her to fall back into her old ways, so that, at the best of times, Miss Blake did not dare relax her control. Then Nan would kick her heels sulkily, and comfort herself with the thought that when her father came home all this would be put an end to. Miss Blake would go. Hadn't she said so herself? And that would finish up this studying business quick enough. She could cajole her father easily into letting her stay away from school, and then—here she would be, as happy as you please, with only those two, Delia and her dear daddy, to look after her, and no one at all would say no to anything she might choose to do. It was a blissful prospect. In the meantime there were lessons, and—Miss Blake.

But after a few days Nan found that, somehow, the lessons were not so hard after all, and she never would have believed that they could be so interesting. While as for Miss Blake—Well, a woman who sits reading "Treasure Island" and such books to one for hours together can't be regarded entirely in the light of a nuisance.

"I never knew geography was so nice before," Nan admitted one day after lessons were over. "I used to hate it, but now, why it's downright jolly! I never saw such beautiful pictures! Where in the world did you ever get so many?"

"I took them myself!"

Nan's eyes widened. "Why, have you been to all these places?" she asked, not a little awe-struck.

Miss Blake confessed she had.

"And you took all these photographs your own self?" persisted the girl.

The governess laughed. "I'm like George Washington, Nan," she said. "I cannot tell a lie! I did them with my little—Kodak!"

Nan fairly gulped. She would have said "Jiminy!" but she knew Miss Blake disapproved of "Jiminy!" and somehow, she was willing to humor her just now.

"Only," went on the governess, "it isn't a little Kodak at all. It is a very fine camera indeed. Some day, if you like, I will show it to you, and then, perhaps you will be interested enough to care to learn how to take some photographs yourself."

Nan bounced up and down on the sofa with delight. "Oh, won't I, though!" she exclaimed feverishly. "Just won't I!"

"But mind you, my dear," warned Miss Blake. "If you once undertake it, I want you to persist. It is not to be any 'You-press-the-button-and-we-do-the-rest' affair. I want you to learn to finish up your work yourself. Do you think you will care to take so much trouble?"

Nan nodded energetically.

"Very well, then. So it stands. If you are willing to learn I'll gladly teach."

"Who taught you?" asked the girl curiously.

Miss Blake shook her head. "Just a man whom I paid for his trouble," she returned simply. "I wanted to learn, and so I went into a gallery and got some experience, and then came away and experimented on my own account. It has taken me years, and I am still working hard at it, for I believe in never being satisfied with anything less than the best one can do."

Nan blinked. She herself believed in being satisfied with whatever came easiest, unless it was in the way of some sport, where she liked to excel.

"How jolly it must be to travel about—all over the world," said she, musingly. "When I'm grown up I guess I'll be a governess, or a companion, or something, just as you are, and get a place with some awfully nice people who will take me everywhere. Was it nice where you were before you came here? Were there any girls? Why did you leave?"

Miss Blake looked troubled, but Nan was not used to noticing other people's moods, and did not even stop to hear the replies to her own questions. "If you've been all over the world, you'll know where my father is, and can tell me about it. Oh, do, do! Show me some pictures of India, won't you please? Just think, I haven't seen my father for two years, and he won't be home until next autumn—almost a year from now. You ought to see him! He is the best man in the world—only I guess he is lonely, because my mother died when I was a baby, and he hasn't any one to keep house for him but Delia and me. Mr. Turner says he has lost a lot of money lately, too. I guess that's why he went to India. If I had been older he would have taken me. But he had to leave me here with Delia. Delia has been in our family, for, oh, ever so many years. She first came to live here when my mother was a young girl. She says it was the jolliest house you ever saw. My grandfather and grandmother were alive then, and mamma had a young friend, who was an orphan, who lived with them. They loved her just as if she had been their own child, and she and my mother were so fond of each other that—well, Delia says it was beautiful to see them together. And such times! There were parties and all sorts of things all the time till, Delia says, it was a caution. My grandfather wasn't very well off, and lots and lots of times my mother wouldn't have been able to go to the parties she was invited to, if it hadn't been for that friend of hers, who used to give her the most beautiful things—dresses, and gloves, and all she needed. She had loads of money, and every time she got anything for herself she got its mate for my mother. Don't you think that was pretty generous?"

Miss Blake bit her lip. "One can't judge, Nan," she said. "If your mother shared her home with this girl and she had money and your mother had not, I think it was only right that they should share the money too. No, I do not think it was generous."

Nan tossed her head. "Well, I think it was and so does Delia," she retorted hotly.

"It is easy enough to give when one has plenty," pursued the governess, almost sternly. "But when one has little and one gives that—well, then it is hard and then perhaps one may be what the world calls generous, though I should call it merely grateful."

Nan did not understand very clearly. She thought Miss Blake meant to disparage her mother's friend, the woman she had been brought up to think was one of the noblest beings on earth. She felt angry and hurt and almost regretted that she had confided the story to her since she made so little of her heroine's conduct.

"I don't care; I think she was perfectly fine and so does Delia. My mother just loved her and I guess she knew whether she was generous or not. When she went away my mother was wild. She cried her eyes out. But she married my father soon after that, and then—well, my grandmother died and then my grandfather, and I was born and my mother died and—O dear me! it was dreadful. Delia says many and many a time she has gone down on her knees and just prayed that that girl would come back, but she has never come and she won't now, because it is years and years ago and maybe she's dead herself by this time. Do you think Delia would have prayed for Miss Severance to come back if she hadn't been the best and most generous girl in the world?"

Miss Blake smiled faintly. "That settles it, Nan!" she declared. "If Delia wanted her back she must at least have tried to be good. And even trying is something, isn't it? And now, how do you think luncheon would taste?"

Nan was more than ever inclined to be sulky. Her loyalty was touched. Not alone did Miss Blake fail to appreciate her heroine, but she showed quite plainly that she did not want to hear about her. "All the time I was talking she fidgeted around and looked too unhappy for anything. I guess she needn't think she's the only one in the world that can make people love her. I don't think it's very nice to be jealous of a person you never saw. Pooh! I like what she said about trying to be good. I guess Delia knows," said Nan.

They ate their luncheon together in the library, and after they had finished Miss Blake excused herself and went upstairs to prepare to go out.

"After being in the house all the morning one needs a change," she said, "and it would be a sin to spend all of this glorious day indoors."

Nan sighed. How she longed to get away herself. But of course that was impossible, with this old troublesome ankle bothering her. If she could not step across the room, how could she hope to get into the street? O dear! When would it be well?

Miss Blake was tripping about upstairs and Nan could hear her singing as she went. Delia was up there, too. When Delia walked the chandelier shook.

"She follows Miss Blake about so, it's perfectly disgusting," thought the girl resentfully. "Now, I wonder what she wants in my room. I don't thank either of them for going poking about my things when I'm not there, so now! Well, I'm glad she's coming down, at any rate."

The governess appeared in the library a moment later, but Nan could scarcely see her face, she was so overladen with wraps and rugs. She turned the whole assortment into a chair, and before the girl could ask a question, she found herself being bundled up and made ready for the street.

"What are you doing?" she gasped out at length. "You know I can't walk."

"Nobody asked you, sir!" quoted the governess, gayly.

"Then what are you putting on my things for?"

"Ready, Delia?" sang out Miss Blake, cheerfully.

Nan heard the front door open. Then heavy steps came clumping along the hall, and in another moment she was being borne down the outer steps and set comfortably in a carriage by the good old Irish coachman, Mike, from the livery stable round the corner.

"Are you comfortable?" asked Miss Blake, with her foot on the step. "Have you everything you need?"

Nan nodded, and the governess, taking her place beside her, motioned to Michael, who climbed to his seat on the box, and off they drove.

"There is Delia at the window! Let's wave to her!" cried Miss Blake, with one of her happy girl-hearted laughs.

It seemed to Nan that she had never seen the Park look as beautiful as it did to-day. To be sure, most of the trees were bare, but the naked branches stood out delicate and clear against the blue of the violet-clouded sky and by the lake-shore the pollard willows were gray and misty, and a few russet maple trees still held their leaves against the sweeping wind. They saw numberless wheels spinning along the smooth paths, and though the governess said nothing, Nan knew she had given up this chance of a ride for her sake.

Impulsively she put out her hand and laid it on Miss Blake's.

"If it weren't for me you'd be on your wheel now, wouldn't you?" she asked.

"Yes," came the answer, prompt as an echo. "But as it is I'm not on my wheel, and it so happens that I'm doing something that gives me much more pleasure."

"If I had a bike it would make me simply furious to have to give up a ride such a day as this," said Nan.

"Then isn't it rather fortunate you haven't one?" asked Miss Blake, saucily. "But seriously, Nan, why haven't you one?"

Nan set her jaw. "My father can't afford it," she said proudly.

The governess turned her head to look at a faraway hill, and there was an embarrassing little pause. When she faced about again Nan could see that her chin was quivering, and in a spirit of tender thoughtfulness quite new to her, she hastened to change the subject since Miss Blake felt so badly about having asked the question.

"This is the lake where we skate in winter," she said. "That is, most of the girls come here. I go to the Steamer. I like it better."

The governess looked at it and asked, absently, "Why?"

"Oh, because its jollier there. Most of the girls I know—I don't know—that is, they don't know me; they don't like me much, and I'd rather not go where they are. John Gardiner and some other boys and I go to the Steamer and have regular contests, and it's the best sport in the world."

But Miss Blake was not listening. She was thinking of other things, and only came back to a sense of what was going on about her when Nan gave a great sigh to indicate that she was tired of waiting to be entertained. The governess roused herself with a smile and an apology and began at once to chat briskly again.

"Whenever you want Michael to turn you have only to say so," she said. "What do you think of going down-town and buying some jelly or something for little Ruth Newton. We could stop there on our way home, and you could send it up with your love."

Nan nodded heartily. It always pleased her to give. She enjoyed, too, the thought of getting a glimpse of the shop-windows, which were already beginning to take on a look of holiday gorgeousness. So down-town they went, and Miss Blake not alone bought the jelly, but so many other things as well, that presently Nan began to have a feeling that for such a poor woman the governess was inclined to be extravagant.

She told Delia so when they were alone together that evening, Miss Blake having gone upstairs to write some letters.

"Oh, I guess you needn't worry," the woman said.

"But you don't know how many things she bought," persisted Nan. "I'm sure she can't afford it. Just think, a woman that works for her living the way she has to! But do you know, Delia, I believe there's something mysterious about her, anyway. She seems to see right into your mind—what you're thinking about; and every once in a while she lets out a hint that the next minute she looks as if she wished she hadn't said. I've noticed it lots and lots of times, and I'm sure she's trying to hide something. What do you s'pose it is? What fun it would be if she were a princess in disguise."

"Well, she ain't," Delia almost snapped. "She's just a good little woman that's trying to do her duty as far as I can make out, and if she spends money you must remember she has only herself to support."



CHAPTER IX

HAVING HER OWN WAY

"I know just the kind I want, and I won't wear any other," said Nan, irritably.

Miss Blake made no reply, and the girl sauntered off to another part of the store, and pretended to be examining a case of trimmed bonnets, which she could not see because her eyes were half-blind with rebellious tears. What right had any one to tell her what sort of a hat she ought to get! If her father was paying for it, she guessed it was nobody else's business to say anything.

Miss Blake held in her hand a handsome, wide-brimmed felt hat, trimmed simply with fine ribbon and a generous bunch of quills.

"It's very girlish and suitable, ma'am!" the saleswoman said, as she turned away to get another model.

After a moment Nan came hurrying back to the governess' side.

"Horrid old thing!" she said in a low voice, flinging her hand out with a gesture of disgust toward the despised hat. "It's stiff as a poker. Do you suppose I want to have just bunched-up bows with some spikes stuck in the middle to trim my hat! And all one color, too! I guess not!"

The governess bit her lip. "Perhaps we may be able to find something more to your fancy," she said. "But plumes are expensive and perishable, and if you have too many colors your hat will look vulgar."

"I hate this place anyhow," went on Nan, disdainfully. "Bigelow's! Who ever thought of going to Bigelow's?"

"Your mother did," said Miss Blake, quickly. "That is, Delia says she did. And I myself know it to be one of the oldest and best firms in the city. One can always be sure that one is getting good quality for one's money here."

"I never was in the place before," blurted out Nan, "and I despise their hats—every one of them. If you won't let me go to Sternberg's, where they have things I like, I won't get anything at all, so there!"

She suddenly let her voice fall, for the sales-woman was back again with a fresh assortment of shapes to select from.

Miss Blake placed the hat she held gently upon a table and began to examine the others carefully, Nan standing by in sullen silence.

"This is a pretty one—this with the tips, don't you think so?" the governess asked, setting it on her hand and letting it revolve slowly while she regarded it critically with her head on one side.

Nan gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. What she wanted was a flaring, turned-up brim, with a dash of red velvet underneath and a bird-of-paradise on top, caught in a mesh of red and yellow ribbons. She had seen something on this order in Sternberg's window, and it had struck her fancy at once.

The governess hesitated, and then put down the hat she held.

"Very well. We will go to Sternberg's," she said, quietly, to Nan, in an undertone which the saleswoman could not distinguish. The girl started briskly for the door. Miss Blake remained behind a moment, and then followed after.

Now that she was to have her own way Nan was restored to good humor, and kept up a stream of chatter until they reached Sternberg's.

"There! Isn't that a beauty?" she demanded at last, indicating the hat in the window.

Miss Blake, with difficulty, concealed a shudder.

"It seems to me rather showy. But tastes differ, you know. I can't say it suits me exactly. Still, if you are pleased—you are the one to wear it, not I."

The hat was bought and Nan was radiant. She insisted on donning it at once, and Miss Blake tried not to let her discover how ashamed she was to be seen in the street with such a monstrous piece of millinery. Underneath her tower of gorgeousness Nan strutted like a turkey-cock.

"I told Delia before we came away that we might not be home before dusk, so suppose we take luncheon down-town, and then, if you like, we will go to see Callmann. I haven't been to a sleight-of-hand performance since I was a little girl, and I always had a liking for that sort of thing."

"Oh, do! Let's! Can we?" cried Nan, in a burst of grateful excitement.

It was nippingly cold outside, and the warm restaurant proved a delightful contrast. It was jolly to sit in the midst of all this pleasant bustle and be served with delicate, unfamiliar dishes by waiters who stood behind the chair and deferentially called one "Miss."

Miss Blake left Nan to order whatever she pleased, and they dawdled over their meal luxuriously, the color in the girl's cheeks deepening with the warmth and excitement until it almost matched the velvet in her imposing hat. Every now and then she glanced furtively at her reflection in the mirror, and the vision of that bird-of-paradise hovering over those huge butterfly bows thrilled her with a great sense of importance and self-satisfaction. More than once she saw that her hat was being noticed and commented on by the other guests, and she tried her best to seem not aware—to look modestly unconscious. But Miss Blake, when she caught some eye fixed quizzically upon their table, blushed to the roots of her hair, and felt as though it would be impossible to bear the ordeal for a moment longer. Still, she did not hurry Nan, and no one knew, the girl least of all, what agonies of mortification she was enduring.

A deep-toned clock struck one full peal.

"That's half-past one," said Miss Blake, looking up and comparing her watch.

"When does the entertainment begin?" asked Nan.

"At two, I think, or quarter after. If we ride up we have still a few minutes to spare, but if we walk it would be wise to start at once."

"O let's walk," begged Nan. "It's such fun; there's so much going on. And now my foot is well, I just want to trot all the time."

Though Miss Blake was a good walker and took a great deal of exercise, she always preferred to ride when she was with Nan, for the girl forged ahead at such a rate and darted in among the maze of trucks and cars and carriages so recklessly that there was actual danger as well as discomfort in trying to keep abreast with her. Still she made no objection to "trotting," and they started off at a brisk pace.

"Don't you just love to be in the stores around Christmas-time?" asked Nan, watching the crowds press and surge about the doorways of some of the most popular shops. "It's so exciting and the things seem so gay and alluring."

"Yes, it is very attractive—all the motion and color," replied Miss Blake, "but I don't like crowds, and when I am hemmed in at a counter and can't get away I feel stifled and smothered, and long to scream."

"Why don't you scream then? I would!" exclaimed Nan, with a laugh. "I'd shriek, 'Air! Air!' and then you'd see how quick the people would let you out."

Miss Blake smiled with what Nan saw was amusement at some just-remembered incident.

"I was watching a huge celebration in London one spring," she said. "It was in honor of some royal birthday or something, and the streets were packed with people all eager to get a glimpse of the military parade and the notabilities who were to take part in it. From the window where I sat I could not see an inch of pavement, the crowd was so dense. At last there was a sound of martial music and the First Regiment appeared in full gala array. Oh, I assure you it was very imposing and well worth taking some trouble to see. The crowds pushed and jostled, and beyond the first line or two at the curb no one among them could get more than an occasional glimpse of a stray cockade or a floating banner. Still the people were massed solidly from the gutter to the house-steps. We were wondering where the enjoyment in this came in, and congratulating ourselves that we were not doomed to struggle and fight for space in such a huddle, when suddenly we heard a shrill scream. It was a woman's voice crying, 'Air! Air! Give me air!' In another instant the crowd pushed back a step, and quite a respectably-dressed young person staggered weakly through the line to the curb, as if to get more breathing-space. Of course she could have got this in a much easier way by going in the other direction, but you see her plan was to get a better view of the procession, and she thought that was a good method of accomplishing it. It seemed a clever trick, and she was just settling herself to enjoy her improved position, when quick as a flash an order was given: Two men unrolled one of their army stretchers; the woman was whipped up and placed upon it; the poles were seized and off they went, carrying that misguided creature with them through all the gaping, jeering crowd. The last I saw of her she was hiding her face in the coarse army blanket, probably 'crying her eyes out,' as you would say, with mortification and shame."

"What a joke!" exclaimed Nan. "Poor thing! She didn't see the parade after all, and I declare she deserved to. That was the time she was in it though, with a vengeance."

"Look out for this cab, Nan! Be careful. We cross here. Please don't rush so—I can't keep up with you," pleaded Miss Blake.

The girl gave her shoulders an impatient shrug and drew her eyebrows together in a scowl of irritation. But her face cleared as she saw Miss Blake buying their tickets at the box-office.

"Get them good and up front," she begged. "If we're way back we can't see a thing."

The governess hesitated an instant; then a curious expression came over her face and she said, deliberately, "Very well, dear! Up front they shall be."

The house was quite full and Nan thought it a singular piece of good fortune that there were places left just where she would have chosen to sit.

"Just think of having come so late and yet being able to get the best seats in the house," she said, exultantly.

Miss Blake smiled. She understood better than Nan did why the majority of the audience preferred places that were not so near the stage.

Both she and the girl herself soon forgot everything else in their interest in the mysterious tricks that were being performed before their eyes. Of course they knew that all this magic could be explained, but just at the moment it appeared difficult to imagine how. A man seems really no less than a magician who can take a red billiard ball from, no one knows where, out of mid-air, apparently, and suddenly nipping off the end, transform it into two, each equally as large as the first. Presently he thinks you would like to have a third, and, presto! he draws one out from his elbow. Now a white one for a change! But it is easy enough to get a white one. He opens his mouth and there it is, held between his teeth. Then he thinks he will swallow a red one. Pop! it is gone! A moment later he takes it out of the top of his head.

Nan noticed that as the performance progressed the tricks grew "curiouser and curiouser," as Alice would say, and the wizard seemed to take his audience more and more into his confidence. He no longer confined himself to the stage, but came tripping down the steps that led from the platform to the middle aisle and addressed, first this one and then that from among his spectators—only Nan again noticed that these always happened to be sitting as they were themselves, in the foremost seats. He induced a man just in front of her to come upon the stage to "assist" him in one of his "experiments," and the girl trembled lest at any moment he might demand a similar favor of her, for though she was reckless enough as a general thing, she had sufficient delicacy to dread being made conspicuous in such a place as this.

"O Miss Blake," she whispered in the governess' ear, "can't we move back a little? If he should make me go up there I'd sink through the floor!"

"Probably you would. No doubt he would let you down himself—through a trap-door. No, we must stay where we are and we must bear it as best we may. Perhaps he will overlook us."

Nan thought of her hat and the many glances it had drawn to her in the restaurant, and for the first time she had a feeling of mistrust regarding it. Suppose it should fix his eye, with its towering bows and flaming bird-of-paradise! If it did, she would hate it forever after.

But she soon forgot her anxiety in her interest in the wizard himself. Silver pieces were flung in the air and then mysteriously reappeared in the pocket of some unsuspecting member of the audience who was much surprised at seeing them straightway converted into so many gold ones under his very nose. Innocent-looking hoops turned out to possess the most remarkable faculty for resisting all attempts to link them on the part of any one of the spectators, and yet immediately assuming all manner of shapes and positions in the hands of the dexterous magician himself.

At last a shallow cabinet was set upon two chairs in the centre of the stage, and after a word or two of explanation, the wizard drew first one chair and then the other from beneath it, and lo! the magic cupboard remained poised in midair, without any visible means of support whatever.

"You see, ladies and gentlemen," announced the suave magician, "this cabinet is bare; precisely like Mother Hubbard's immortal cupboard. Can you see anything there? No! I thought not. Now I will place within it these bells, so; and this tambourine, so; also this empty slate. You see it is empty. It is quite a simple slate, such as any school-child would use, and its sides are entirely bare. Now I close the doors of the cabinet, so; wave my wand, so; and—"

Immediately there followed the sounds of ringing bells and rattling tambourine, while in a moment all of these instruments came flying out of the top of the cabinet as if they had been vigorously flung aloft by hidden hands. The smiling magician stepped forward, opened the doors of the cabinet with a flourish, and lo! it was empty save for the slate, which proved to be covered over with scribbled characters, and which he politely handed down to persons in the audience for examination.

Nan was completely bewildered and so lost to all that was going on about her that she did not realize that the wizard was tripping down the stage steps and making his way affably up the middle aisle again. It was only when he spoke once more that she woke with a great start, and then to her horror she found he was addressing her.

"I am sure this young lady will not refuse me the loan of her hat for my next experiment," he began with a persuasive smile. "I assure you, Miss, I will not injure it in the least. You won't object, will you?" and he held out his hand engagingly.

The girl stiffened against the back of her chair, so disconcerted that she felt actually dizzy.

"Give him your hat," bade Miss Blake, quickly, as if to put an end to their really painful conspicuousness.

Nan obeyed blindly. The smiling magician took it with a profound bow and held it up for all the audience to see.

"Now you perceive, ladies and gentlemen," he remarked, "that there is nothing mysterious about this hat. At least I am sure the ladies do. To the gentlemen it doubtless seems very mysterious, but that is because they do not understand the art of millinery." As he spoke he made his way up the aisle and to the steps that led to the stage. "It is a beautiful hat. Very elaborate and of a most stylish shape, as you see, but not at all mysterious. Yet I mean to make it serve me in a very interesting experiment, which I think you will admit is exceedingly won—"

But just here he stumbled upon one of the steps, and in trying to recover himself let Nan's cherished head-gear fall and brought his whole weight upon it, crushing it out of all recognition.

"Oh, dear, dear! What have I done?" he deplored in sincerest dismay.

Miss Blake's eyes fell and Nan's lips whitened. Every one was looking at them now, and the magician was making them even more conspicuous by apologizing to them over and over again in the most abject fashion.

"How could I be so awkward! Such a beautiful hat and ruined through my carelessness. I have no words to describe my regret. Do forgive me! But I promised to return your property to you uninjured, did I not, Miss? So, of course, I must keep my word." He held the battered mass of ribbons and bird-of-paradise high above his head as he spoke, and then went forward and placed a pistol in the hand of his assistant on the stage. The man retired to a distance and the wizard held the hat at arm's length as if for a target.

"Now, ready? Then—shoot!"

A second for aim: a report; and the smiling Callmann stepped forward with the hat in his hand, quite whole again and unimpaired.

A shudder ran through Nan as she heard the applause and saw her property held up to public view. She dared not turn her head to look at Miss Blake, and she hardly heard the wizard's voice as he asked to be permitted to use the hat for still another experiment, and she scarcely saw how he placed it on a table, a perfectly innocent looking table, and then proceeded to take from it a multitude of things—from a gold watch to a clucking hen.

When the hen came to light the audience fairly shouted, and Nan thought she could never in the world get up courage to set that hat on her head again and walk out before the eyes of these quizzical people.

"They'll laugh at me all the way," she thought moodily. "And if they ever see me in the street they'll say, 'There goes that trick hat! The one the hen came out of!' I wish it was in Jericho!"

Miss Blake comforted her as best she could with little hidden pressures of the hand and whispered words of sympathy, but the rest of the performance was torture to them both, and when, at last, it was over and they were well on their way home, Nan heaved a great sigh of relief and tried to summon back her courage by declaring that "I don't care if they did laugh when that hen clucked inside it and he said he was afraid this was what might be called 'a loud hat!' It's heaps better than lots I saw on other girls, so there!"

"I am glad you are satisfied with it," said Miss Blake, simply.



CHAPTER X

EXPERIENCES

For the first time since Nan could remember, the house was full of the air of Christmas preparation. Of course she had always had presents, and she never failed to give Delia a gift, but there was no scent of mystery about the holiday celebration; no delicious odor of a hidden Christmas tree; no sense of unseen tokens; nothing to distinguish the time from an ordinary birthday anniversary. But this year everything was changed, and Nan was as much occupied with her own secrets and surprises as either Miss Blake or Delia, who whispered and dodged and smiled cunningly all day long in the most perplexing manner. But she confined her preparations to her own room, while the governess apparently needed the library and all the rest of the house, too, and Nan found herself barred out of Miss Blake's room by her own stubborn pride which still forbade her to go in without a formal invitation. She was also locked out of the library which was now being made festive for the coming holiday, so that at times she wandered about quite helplessly in a sort of forlorn state of having nowhere to turn.

She had fallen into the habit of running over to the Newton's while Ruth was sick, and she proved such a tender nurse and entertaining companion that the child's mother looked forward with relief to her visits, and only wished she would come oftener.

"She keeps Ruth so happy and contented. It gives me a free minute to turn 'round in, and is a real comfort."

"I thought you would find her helpful," responded Miss Blake. "She loves children, and they know it and love her back again. She is very gentle with them, and I know you may trust her, for she is as true as steel."

"She's a changed girl, that's the whole truth of the matter. You've simply tamed her, the young savage!"

"Oh, Nan has a fine nature. All she needs is judicious training. If I were not sure of that I should despair many and many a time. She needs judicious training and a world of patience and love."

Mrs. Newton dropped her work into her lap and looked up earnestly into the governess' face.

"Yes, I can believe it. What a rash, head-long sort of creature you must think me! Why, I was as bad as Nan herself, to go over there and simply browbeat her as I did! Do you suppose she will ever really forgive me?"

"I'm sure she has done so already. Nan is generous. She does not bear malice. She has a vast amount of pride but as yet she does not know how to use it."

"I should think it would be enough to break down your health—such constant care and responsibility. It is Nan's salvation to have you with her, but do you think you can hold out?"

Miss Blake pondered a moment and then nodded her head decidedly. "I will hold out," she said staunchly.

"You don't know how boisterous she was, and how it shocked me! At last I grew frenzied, and when Ruth was brought in to me injured in that way, through her fault, I supposed, I lost control of myself entirely, and felt that, come what might, the girl must be attended to. There's no doubt of it, your Nan is improved, and if this neighborhood is not made miserable by her piercing war-cries, her hairbreadth adventures, and her eccentric behavior generally, it is all owing to you. But here she comes herself! Put away your work! Quick!"

Nan knocked politely at the open door.

"Oh, come in, dear!" said Mrs. Newton cordially, and the governess looked at her encouragingly and smiled.

"Bridget told me to come right up," explained Nan. "Is Ruth out?"

"No, taking a nap in the nursery. She'll be awake soon now, I'm sure. Take off your things and sit down."

"Won't I be in the way?"

Mrs. Newton patted her on the shoulder. "No, my dear, you won't. On the contrary, it will be very pleasant to have you here to take a cup of tea with Miss Blake and me; will you excuse me a moment while I go and call Katy to bring it up?"

"I thought you were in your room," said Nan to Miss Blake as their hostess left the room.

"Did you need me? Why didn't you knock? What was it you wanted me to do?"

"Oh, nothing. I didn't need you—that is, there wasn't anything I wanted you to do, only—it seemed kind of lonely, and so I came over here."

"And I thought you would be locked in your own room for the rest of the afternoon. How dreadfully mysterious we all are nowadays."

Nan laughed. She got out of her coat with a tug and a squirm and flung it on the lounge. Then she wrenched off her hat (the Sternberg affair) and tossed it carelessly after the coat.

Miss Blake bent over and straightened the untidy heap without a word.

"Delia is making mince pie-lets for dinner," announced Nan.

"How jolly of her!" said Miss Blake.

"Huh!" exclaimed Nan. "She said you told her to."

The governess smiled.

Mrs. Newton came in a moment later and after her Katy with the tea-tray.

Nan sprawled down on the rug in complete comfort while Miss Blake and Mrs. Newton sipped their tea and talked of all sorts of things, to which she hardly listened.

She was full of her own thoughts, and somehow they were all connected with the governess. In fact, her influence seemed to pervade everything, and Nan often wondered how the house would seem without her, now that they had "sort of got used to having her around." Without a doubt she made herself useful. And somehow she managed to make people depend on her in spite of themselves. And yet she never made a fuss or exaggerated the things she did. She was always doing "little things "—little things that didn't make any show, and yet they were so kind they "sort of made you like her whether you wanted to or not." This thought came upon Nan with a start, that roused her from her musing and made her sit bolt upright with surprise. Had Miss Blake made her like her, then? After all the reproaches she had cast upon Delia was she no better than a turn-coat herself?

"We had ours built in before we came into the house," Mrs. Newton was saying. "It is a vast improvement. I wouldn't be without it for the world."

Nan pricked up her ears. She wondered what this desirable thing might be.

"Who did the work?" Miss Blake asked.

"Buchanan. And I'll say this for him, he did it well. I haven't a fault to find. I think you'd be satisfied with him."

"A person doesn't like to put a piece of work like that into the hands of a man one knows nothing about," resumed Miss Blake. "I'm glad to profit by your experience. It may save me, too, a great deal of worry and no little expense."

"Oh, yes," returned Mrs. Newton. "If one can economize on experience it's a great satisfaction. It's the best school I know of. But it's so expensive that it ruins some of us before we're done."

"What's the best school you know of?" asked Nan, curiously.

"Experience," replied Miss Blake.

"Oh!"

"Yes; and it's a school we all have to go to at one time or another," put in Mrs. Newton. "But we might make it a good deal easier for ourselves sometimes if we'd take hints from our friends who have graduated."

"Have you graduated?" Nan asked, half in fun, turning to Miss Blake.

But Mrs. Newton broke in before the governess could reply for herself. "Graduated! Well, I should think so! Why, she has carried off honors! She has taken a diploma—with a ribbon 'round it!"

Miss Blake laughed. "Nothing of the sort, Nan. I've had a few lessons, that is all."

"Oh, tell about some of them, won't you?" cried Nan, eagerly. "It would be lots of fun."

The governess considered.

"Well, yes. I will tell you of the very first lesson I can remember, if you care to hear," she answered, with a wistful smile. "I won't promise it will be 'lots of fun,' though."

"Never mind! Tell it!" And Nan settled herself more comfortably against the governess' knee quite as if that person were, in reality, her prop and stay, instead of being only some one she "sort of liked in spite of herself."

"I think it must have been the first real experience I ever had," began Miss Blake, musingly. "At least it is the first one I recollect. I was the littlest bit of a girl when my mother died; too young to realize it, and my father scarcely outlived her a week. He died very suddenly. They used to tell me that he died from grief. Anyway, he was sitting at his desk looking over some important papers connected with my mother's affairs, when suddenly he put his hand to his heart, gave a faint gasp—and was gone."

"What an elegant way to die!" broke in Nan impulsively.

Mrs. Newton gave an exclamation of real horror at her flippancy.

"Oh, you know what I mean!" the girl hastened to protest. "I think it must be worlds better than being sick, or hurt in an accident, or any of those dreadful, lingering deaths."

"After that I was given over into the charge of some distant connections of my father," continued the governess. "They were good, conscientious people, but they had no children of their own, and did not like other people's. I presume I was not a very captivating baby."

Nan straightened up suddenly. "I bet you were, though," she interrupted. "You must have been a dot of a thing, with crinkly hair and dimples, and mites of hands and feet. I should think they would have loved you—I mean, a poor little lonely baby like you."

Miss Blake smiled. "Well, however that was, Nan, I was brought up very strictly, and I assure you, I was made to mind my P's and Q's. One could not trifle with Aunt Rebecca! Well, one morning I was sitting at the foot of the staircase playing house. I can see myself now, squatting on the lowest step, my fat little legs scarcely long enough to reach the floor. I had on a checked gingham pinafore, and my hair was drawn tight behind my ears and braided into two tiny tails with red ribbons on the ends. I knew it was against the rule to play house in the hall, anywhere, in fact, but in my own little room—with the doors shut, but somehow I felt reckless that day, and when I heard Aunt Rebecca walking to and fro, just above my head, I didn't scamper off as I ordinarily would have done; I just sat still and said to myself, 'I don't care! I don't care!' It seemed to give me a lot of courage, and I wasn't a bit afraid, even when Aunt Rebecca's footsteps came nearer, and I knew she could see me from the top of the stairs. Indeed, I grew mightily brave; so brave, that after a couple of minutes I raised my voice and piped out: 'Aunt Becca! Aunt Becca!'

"'Well,' answered she, 'what is it? what do you want?'

"Even the severity of her voice didn't dismay me that rash morning.

"'I want Lilly,' said I, airily. Lilly was my precious doll. 'She's in her little chair in my room; won't you please to pitch me Lilly?'

"For a moment Aunt Rebecca hesitated. I think she must have been petrified by my audacity. But she recovered herself and turned, and without a word went to my room and got Lilly from her 'little chair.' I was as complacent as if it had been quite the usual thing for Aunt Rebecca to fetch and carry for me. Indeed, perhaps I imagined I was instituting a new order of things, and that in future she would do my errands, instead of I hers.