The Governess

by Julie M. Lippmann

The little governess was beside her.

"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.

"She came back to the head of the stairway and I looked up pleasantly, half-expecting, I suppose, that she would come down and deliver my darling dolly safely into my hands. But she didn't. If I were giving orders she would obey me to the letter. She 'pitched me Lilly.' I gave a dismal wail of dismay as I saw my dear baby come hurtling through the air, but when she landed on her blessed head, and I heard the crack of breaking china, I just abandoned myself to grief and howled desperately. Aunt Rebecca went about her business as if nothing had happened, and by and by I stole off with my ruined dolly and cried to myself in the back yard—because I had no one else to cry to."

"You poor little thing!" burst out Nan, indignantly. "What a detestable woman! As if she could have expected such a baby to know!"

"You're wrong, Nan!" the governess said. "It was a wholesome lesson, and I am grateful to Aunt Rebecca for having given it to me."

"Well, I shouldn't think you would be," insisted the girl rebelliously. "The idea of her expecting such a mite to understand!"

"Ah, but you see I did understand. And I have never forgotten it. I have never asked any one to 'pitch me Lilly' since that day—I mean never when I could go and get her myself."

Nan pondered over it moodily for a moment. "And did you have to stay in that house until you were grown up?" she demanded.

"Oh, no! When I was about your age I went to boarding-school, and everything was changed and different after that."

"How?"

"Well, I made dear, faithful friends who took me to their hearts and who made my life rich with their love. All that other hungry, empty time was over, and for many years I never knew what it was to feel sad or lonely, or to have a wish that would not have been gladly gratified if it could be."

"Now they were something like!" ejaculated Nan. "Dear me! I should think you would have been sorry when you got through school."

Miss Blake made no reply. She put up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the fire, and for a second or two there was a deep hush in the room. Nan was the first to break the silence.

"Goodness!" she cried, springing to her feet with a bound. "It's as dark as a pocket outside, and Delia'll think we're lost or something if we don't go home."

Miss Blake surreptitiously gathered her work together and slipped it into her bag. "Yes, we must scamper," she exclaimed, as she turned to help Nan on with her coat.

"Dear, dear, what a gorgeous hat!" exclaimed Mrs. Newton, as the girl set it carelessly upon her head.

Nan looked sheepish. "I'm glad you like it!" she ventured clumsily.

Mrs. Newton did not respond that she had not said she liked it. She busied herself with Miss Blake and her wraps, and replied merely, "It's a remarkable gay affair."

Then she kissed the governess "Good-night," and saw both her and Nan safely to the door.

The two hastened across the street to see which could get out of the wind first.

"I beat!" panted the girl, as she stood in the vestibule and saw Miss Blake breathlessly climb the last step.

"Yes, you beat! Fair and square!" admitted the governess as Delia let them in, chattering and shivering, from the chilly air.

"Who'll beat now, going upstairs?" screamed Nan.

Miss Blake made a dash for the first step and the two went flying up in a perfect whirl of laughter and fun.

Delia had forgotten to light the gas in Nan's room and the girl stumbled about blindly, crashing into the furniture and casting off her coat and hat in her old headlong fashion, not stopping to think of all Miss Blake's warnings on the subject, but just hurrying to get down stairs and "beat" the governess in another race.

"Clean hands! Smooth hair, and a neat dress for dinner!" sang out the governess gayly.

Nan shrugged her shoulders in the dark and made a lunge at the mantelpiece for a match. She struck it and lit the gas, swinging off to the washstand as soon as it was done.

Suddenly Miss Blake heard a shriek, a rush of feet across the floor, and then Nan's voice exclaiming "Great Scott!" in a tone that was a cross between a laugh and a cry.

She did not wait a moment but hurried instantly to the girl's door.

Nan was standing beside the gas fixture, and in her hand was her cherished hat—a ruined mass of smoldering felt and charred plumage.

"Nan!" exclaimed Miss Blake, horrified at the sight.

"I know it! Isn't it awful! I just slung it on the globe as I always do, and—and—when I lit the gas I forgot all about it, and it was ablaze in a minute. Don't say a word! I know you've told me hundreds of times not to put it there. But I forgot, and—O dear! what'll I wear on my head the rest of the winter? But it is too funny!"

Miss Blake tried to look stern.

"I'm heartily sorry you've lost your hat, Nan," she said, kindly, without a hint of reproach in her voice. "You were so fond of it. I'm really very sorry, dear!"

Nan checked her laughter. She let the hat fall to the floor. A sudden impulse seized her, and she strode up the governess and took her by the shoulders.

"You're a real dear not to say 'I told you so!'" she cried. "And you haven't jeered at me, though I know you hated the hat from the start. And now I'm going to tell you something—two things! First: I'm never going to hang up my clothes on the gas again, honestly! And second: I hated the old thing, too. The minute I bought it I hated it, and I've hated it ever since."

Miss Blake looked up, and their eyes met.

"Good for you, Nan," she said, standing on her tip-toes to pat the girl approvingly on the head. "Good for you! And now it's my turn to confess. Wait a minute!"

She flew out of the room, and before Nan fairly knew she had gone she was back again, and in her hand was a huge milliner's box.

"I couldn't help it!" she cried, half apologetically. "I got it that day, just to please myself—and now you'll wear it, won't you, dear? It's very simple, but it is of the best, and it will match your coat, you see."

She untied the string, lifted the sheets of tissue-paper, and displayed what even Nan had to admit was a beautiful hat.

The girl looked at it in silence for a moment; then she ducked down impulsively, and gave the governess a quick, shy kiss upon the cheek.

"Thank you," she said, huskily, with a sort of gulp, and then she ran out of the room as fast as her feet would carry her.

CHAPTER XI

CHRISTMAS

"This is to be a German Christmas," Miss Blake said, "and we're going to celebrate it on Christmas eve. Of all the different customs I've seen I like the German the best. It is so jolly and freundlich, as they say over there."

So on Christmas eve the library doors were thrown open for the first time in days and days, and there stood the most glorious tree that Nan had ever seen. It was decked out with a hundred glistening things and laden down with red apples, yellow oranges, and pounds and pounds of peppermint candy, and barley-sugar figures, pretty to see and delicious to eat, to say nothing of Marzipan, to which the girl was introduced for the first time, and which she found altogether fascinating. Innumerable candles burned gayly among the spreading boughs, and at the very top hovered an angel with outspread, shimmering wings, her hands bearing a garland of glistening tinsel, and her garments ablaze with gold and silver decoration. Grown girl as she was, Nan was delighted. It was all so new and strange; so different from anything she had ever experienced before.

Beside the tree were tables spread with white cloths, and upon these lay the presents, and wonderful presents they proved. Miss Blake and Delia had outdone themselves, and Nan's table was a sight to behold. It seemed to her it held everything she had ever expressed a wish for—except a bicycle, of course.

A pocket-kodak from Miss Blake, a banjo from her father, skates from Delia, she had longed for just such a new pair, and innumerable other articles bearing no giver's name, but coming, every one, from the same generous source Nan knew well enough. She absolutely lost her head in the delight of possessing such an array of treasures.

Her own little offerings seemed to her poor and mean in comparison with this display; but Miss Blake's eyes actually filled with grateful tears at the sight of the half-dozen linen handkerchiefs the girl had marked for her with so much trouble and at the cost of so many hours of recreation, and Delia hugged her rapturously at the sight of the gorgeous dress-pattern that Nan had selected for her "all alone by herself," and that had come out of the saving of more than a half-year's allowance of precious pocket-money.

"Now, Nan!" said Miss Blake, when the first excitement had somewhat subsided, "there is one more surprise that Delia and Mr. Turner and I have planned for you, and as I expect it to arrive at any moment now, and as it is pretty big I want you to help clear away these tables to give it lots of room to move about in. We want to get everything out of the way and all the presents safely stowed aside upstairs so nothing will be broken. While we are going back and forth you may guess what it is, if you like."

"A bicycle?" ventured Nan, striding upstairs with her kodak in one arm and a bundle of books in the other.

"No, it's not a bicycle. Guess again. I'll give you two more," answered the governess, following after her with her load.

"I know what I want next to a bicycle."

"What?"

"I don't like to say."

"Why?"

"Well, you know," hesitated the girl, "if I said what it was, and if what you've got turned out something different, you might feel disappointed because you might think I did."

Miss Blake smiled. "That's a generous thought, Nan," she said; "but I give you free leave to speak out."

Even now the girl hesitated, and stood awkwardly balancing herself against the baluster-rail. "Even if you wanted to you couldn't give it to me," she blurted out, at length.

"Why?" repeated Miss Blake.

"Because—oh, because—it wouldn't come," she cried, with a rueful laugh.

"Now that sounds ominous," exclaimed the governess, as she and Nan started on their last trip. "It sounds as if you wanted a horse, or something of that sort, that might prove balky."

"No, it isn't a horse. But it's balky enough, if that's all."

"Then tell me why it wouldn't come?"

Nan let her armful of gifts fall on her counterpane in a heap. "Oh, because—because—its mothers don't approve of me. What I want is a party, so there! and I couldn't have one because, even if my father could afford it, no one would come. Grace Ellis wouldn't, nor Mary Brewster, nor any of those girls I'd want. They turn up their noses at me because they think I don't know how to behave. Once Louie Hawes spoke to me and I liked her, but the next time I saw her she looked the other way, and I suppose some one had told her something she didn't approve of. So she wouldn't come either—no matter how much I asked her, and of course I wouldn't ask her at all. Mrs. Andrews up the street asked me to Ruth's party last winter, but I heard their girl tell Delia that she did it because she had known my mother and felt obliged to, so I wouldn't go. I couldn't after that, you know. I did go to the Buckstone twins' party, but all the other girls got off in corners and laughed and talked, and I was left out and had to shift for myself. So I went and talked to John Gardiner and Harley Morris and those, and of course we got on first-rate—we always do, for if I can't dance I can skate, and the boys got me to promise I'd go with them the next good ice, and we got talking about other things, and I never thought anything about the girls any more until Mrs. Buckstone came up and said, 'I'm sorry, my dear, to break up this pleasant group, but we can't permit you to monopolize our young gentlemen. The rest of the young ladies are waiting for partners.' Then I knew I had got myself into a scrape, for Mrs. Buckstone was dreadfully icy and the girls were furious. So you see no one would come."

Miss Blake caught up a stray lock of hair at the girl's temple and tucked it back into place, smoothed the ribbon upon her "best dress" collar, and said tenderly:

"Well, that will all be made right to-night, I guess. Come, take my hand, and let's fly down stairs, and be ready to receive, for you've got your wish—there's the bell!—and your party is coming in."

They met the first comers on the stairs, and had to hurry past them to avoid getting caught by a second installment. After that the guests came quick and fast, and Nan had all she could do to welcome them and wonder dimly in between how things were to be started, so that everybody should have a good time.

But, bless you! She might have saved herself the trouble, for Miss Blake simply set things going without any bother at all, and before Nan realized what was happening, she saw the governess and big John Gardiner leading in a lively game, while the music of a piano and some violins, which were hidden away out of sight, fell upon her delighted ear. She followed the sound, and it took her to the glass extension, which, to her astonishment, was all alight, and fragrant with flowering plants and towering palms. The "old trunks and things" that had littered the place were gone, and in their stead was all this soft greenness and bloom, while from above hung graceful lanterns, sending out a tender light that made the leaves look shadowy and waxen, and gave the spot a peculiar air of mystery and grace.

She found Louie Hawes and Ruth Andrews hidden away in a snug corner behind a screening rubber-tree. They were apparently deep in conversation when she came up, but at sight of her they fell suddenly silent and looked embarrassed and ill at ease. For a moment Nan was at a loss what to do. Then, all at once, Miss Blake's rule for etiquette flashed across her mind:

"When you don't know how to act, Nan, do something honest and kind, and that will be sure to be right."

She told herself that perhaps after all, the girls had not been talking about her, and said to them pleasantly:

"Do you like it away back here? It's rather out of the way of the games; but don't you want to play?"

"Oh, yes; by and by," stammered Ruth, awkwardly. "It's awfully pretty in this conservatory, and Lu and I got in here and couldn't get away. One wants to sit still and just enjoy it. I think I never saw such dainty lanterns."

The conversation seemed on the point of coming to a standstill, but Nan plunged in again, her sense of being hostess spurring her on.

"I guess they're some Miss Blake brought with her from China, or somewhere. She has been around the world, and has collected any number of beautiful things. Some of them are perfectly fine."

"Oh, I think she herself is one of the loveliest things!" cried Ruth, enthusiastically. "She has a darling face. One wants to kiss her, she's so dear!"

"Mamma says she used to know her years ago at school," said Louie. "She says she is one of the finest characters she knows. She was delighted to have me come when Miss Blake asked me to your party."

"Yes, it was awfully nice of you to think of us," put in Ruth, laboriously.

Again the conversation threatened to flag. But here was Nan's opportunity to do something honest, and she did it.

"Oh, don't thank me. I didn't think of you," she returned bluntly; "that is, I didn't know anything at all about the party myself until a little while ago. Miss Blake did it all. I don't know how in the world she ever happened to ask just the ones I wanted, though."

Ruth and Louie exchanged glances. Then they laughed.

"Well, if you didn't think of us," they said, "you wanted us, so it's nice of you all the same."

That broke the ice, and it wasn't five minutes before all three were sitting together and chatting as comfortably as if they had been on the most intimate terms of friendship for years, and it was only Nan's sense of her responsibility as hostess that dragged her away at last.

"Miss Blake will wonder where we are. Won't you come into the other room? Besides you can't enjoy being cooped up in this little corner when the fun is going on outside."

"Oh, but we do enjoy it!" protested Ruth. "It's giving us a chance to get acquainted with you. And we want you to promise us that you'll go skating with us day after to-morrow. Please do!"

"Of course we know how you skate," declared Louie, "and we'll be so proud to have such a champion in our club. Say you'll come! And don't hold it against us that we haven't asked you before."

Nan's heart leaped. "Why, I'll love to," she said with a frankness equal to Louie's own, adding in a tone quite new to her, "if Miss Blake will let me."

Grace Ellis and Mary Brewster lifted their eyebrows in surprise as the three girls appeared in the doorway, chatting so intimately and being so plainly on the best of terms.

"Dear me!" whispered Grace, "what's come over Lu and Ruth? They actually look as if they liked her."

"Don't you believe it," declared Mary sourly. "They're here at her party and they can't exactly shove her off in her own house, but it will be 'for one night only.' Now you see! They won't want her around now any more than they have before—a rowdyish thing like that."

She had scarcely replaced her bitter expression by one more suited to the time and place when Louie came over to where they were, her face wreathed in smiles, and her arm flung impulsively around Nan's waist.

"O girls!" she cried. "Isn't it nice? Ruth and I have made Nan promise that she'll come skating with us day after to-morrow, and she's going to join the club. Won't it put a feather in our cap to have such a member?"

Mary knit her brows and Grace smiled icily.

"Very nice," they responded coldly.

Nan's eyes flashed, and then suddenly lowered. "Oh! I didn't give a definite promise," she returned quietly, and with unexpected dignity. "I said if Miss Blake would let me. I'm afraid she won't. I hurt my ankle not long ago, and I haven't dared exercise it much since. Probably Miss Blake will think I ought to save it for a while yet."

"But you were out on Saturday," protested Ruth. "I saw you. Your ankle is only an excuse. You skate so easily, it couldn't be a strain."

Grace looked at Mary with a curious expression in her eyes, but neither of them added her voice to the other girls' solicitations, and the little group stood there in what threatened to become a painful silence when Nan felt a light touch on her shoulder, and, turning around, discovered Miss Blake standing at her elbow.

"O Nan!" she said, smiling brightly at the other girls, as if to excuse herself for not including them in her familiarity, "won't you please go and see if you can't entertain that poor young Joe Tracy? I've done my best, but he won't come out of his shell for all I can do, and I think your hearty, breezy way is just what he needs. He looks so forlorn, tucked away 'all alone by himself,' as you would say."

She patted the girl affectionately on the shoulder as she sent her on her way, saying heartily, as she passed out of ear-shot: "I always feel perfectly secure when I can fall back on Nan to help me out with shy, sensitive people. She has such a great, warm heart that it seems to thaw their stiffness right out of them."

Louie threw her arm impulsively about the governess' waist:

"You're such a dear!" she cried, demonstratively; "and I'm over and over obliged to you for letting me come here and get acquainted with Nan. I think she is ever so nice, and it's a shame that we haven't known each other before."

Miss Blake gave the girl a hearty smile.

"Better late than never," she returned gayly.

Grace Ellis reddened and Mary Brewster tilted her chin superciliously, but they both turned their eyes suddenly in the direction of the other end of the room as Ruth Andrews grasped Miss Blake's arm, and whispered excitedly:

"For goodness' sake, do look over there! Nan has got Joe Tracy laughing already."

Sure enough, the lad's pale, sensitive face was all aglow, and, as he listened to what the girl was saying, his eyes brightened and his mouth danced up at the corners in a laugh of genuine appreciation. Nan was gesticulating in her own graphic fashion, and the girls could easily follow her by watching her expression and her vivid pantomime.

Plainly she was describing the sleight-of-hand performance to her bashful friend, and Miss Blake could readily see that she was not sparing herself in the recital.

She raised her hands to her head and pretended to take off her hat, which she made a show of reluctantly surrendering to some one who received it with a profound bow. Then she suddenly leaned forward, as if stumbling on something, and the next moment she held up her hand and seemed to be regarding some article upon it with an exaggeratedly doleful expression that was such an exact imitation of the renowned wizard's that Miss Blake recognized it at once, and laughed as heartily as Joe Tracy himself. By this time the girls were thoroughly interested, and kept their eyes fixed on Nan so that they might not lose one gesture nor the slightest change of expression.

"O dear! Those Buckstone girls! Why do they get in my way," lamented Louie Hawes, "I wish they wouldn't crowd round her so. First thing they know she'll notice them, and stop short off and won't tell any more."

"Hush, Lu! There go John Gardiner and Harley Morris!"

But Nan was in full swing now, and too absorbed in her story to be aware of the little court that had gathered around her. Joe Tracy's eyes followed her every movement with greedy interest, and when she at length imitated the flapping wings of the clucking hen he simply shouted with laughter and clapped his hands vigorously, quite lost to all but his appreciation and sense of the fun of the thing.

It seemed to remind him of something similar in his own experience, for he immediately started in on a description of his own, and Nan sat listening in her turn with rapt attention. Every now and then a shout of laughter would come from the group in the distant corner, and the girls longed to go over and join in the fun.

"Listen to John Gardiner 'haw-haw!'" cried Mary Brewster.

"Don't the Buckstone twins give funny little giggles?" interposed Louie.

"Why can't we go over and listen too?" suggested Ruth.

So they all, even Grace Ellis and Mary Brewster, went softly toward the alluring corner, and were just in time to catch the end of Joe Tracy's story, which was so witty that John Gardiner swayed back and forward with delight and shook the room with his hearty laugh, and the Buckstone girls' giggle joined in like a shrill accompaniment.

It had all come about so naturally that Joe Tracy did not realize that he had been orating to a roomful, and he did not seem to mind it at all when he discovered that he and Nan had had an audience. His shyness was quite gone and his face was radiant with enjoyment.

The piano and violins started in again, and Miss Blake was heard inviting bulky Tom Porter to escort her down to supper.

Of course, Nan had known all along that there would be something to eat, but she had not dreamed of such a spread as this.

It made her eyes shine and her cheeks glow to hear such whispered words as these:

"Yes, indeed! Aren't you?"

"Far and away the jolliest one yet!"

"Do get me some more salad, won't you, please? It's the best I ever ate!"

"Up-and-down jolly time. A fellow likes to be made feel at home like this."

Miss Blake, who without seeming to be watching any one, saw that every one was well supplied, kept a constant eye on Nan, and at last, on the strength of what she discovered, thought it was time to interfere.

"Now sit down, my dear," she commanded softly, coming up behind the girl and touching her gently on the arm. "You are getting all tired out and having nothing to eat yourself. Every one is served and the waiters will look out for the rest. I have saved a place for you in the corner beside Louie and Ruth. So go now and rest and eat and enjoy yourself. You must not be the only one at your party who is neglected."

Nan gave her a grateful look and dashed off toward Louie and Ruth who were beckoning wildly to her to come. They had so much to tell that they almost forgot their plates in their eagerness to talk.

"Grace Ellis is just wild to come over here," confided Louie.

"But Mary Brewster won't let her. Mary just bosses Grace about till I think it's positively disgraceful," whispered Ruth.

John Gardiner sauntered up.

"Got everything you want?" he asked in a manful effort to be attentive.

"No!" replied Nan, promptly, with a twinkle in her eye. "I want a bicycle, please. Won't you get me one?" and she held out her plate as if to have it supplied with the desired article.

The tall fellow laughed. "With pleasure," he said, and took the plate and marched off with it.

"O dear! I hadn't finished my salad!" lamented Nan, looking regretfully after him.

Louie managed to telegraph their dilemma to Harley Morris, who promptly responded to it by appearing with another plate of salad and a dish of sandwiches. He did not go away after Nan was served, but stayed on and led in the laugh when John Gardiner reappeared with a tiny ice cream bicycle daintily poised against a mound of jelly, which he presented to Nan with a low bow full of mock dignity, saying:

"You have only to command and you are obeyed. Here is your wheel, and may it go as fast as if it were geared to a hundred."

"Thank you," replied Nan, accepting the joke and the plate at the same time. "It'll go fast enough, no fear of that. Eating is never up-hill work with me, and this has nothing to do but coast, you see," and she swallowed the first mouthful down with a jolly laugh.

"Look over at Mary Brewster! She's trying her best to pretend she ignores us," whispered Ruth, but not so low but that the young fellows could hear.

"Is one who ignores an ignor—amus?" asked Harley Morris, grinning broadly at his own witticism.

"Yes," promptly answered Louie. "And in this case especially so, for she doesn't know what she's losing."

There were more games after supper, and last of all came the jolliest part of the whole evening, an old-fashioned Virginia reel, Miss Blake and John Gardiner leading and the rest following with the heartiest of zest. In and out they tripped and up and down they ran till all were fairly out of breath. Then suddenly Miss Blake seized John's hand, and away they sped toward the library, the rest following helter-skelter, where the Christmas tree stood all lighted and ablaze.

"All hands round!" shouted John, as they formed a ring and pranced gayly about the fragrant tree.

Then up rose the governess' cheery voice, singing the dear old Christmas carol that is always new:

"Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King;
Peace on earth and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled."

And the rest joined in and made the house re-echo with their hearty chorus:

"Joyful all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th' angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

It seemed to melt the hearts of every one there, for the voices that presently said "Good-night," were full of peace and good-will, and even Mary Brewster's had a ring of sincerity in it as she murmured:

"Good-night, Miss Blake! Good-night, Nan. I've had a charming evening, and I hope we'll know each other better after this."

CHAPTER XII

SMALL CLOUDS

It proved an ideal Christmas day. Clear and cold and spotlessly white, for the snow fell heavily all through the night, and covered everything with a mantle of glistening frost.

Nan looked out of her window, and gave a gasp of delight as she saw the shimmering, rime-covered trees, with the sunshine striking full upon them and bringing out sparks of light from every branch and twig. Whatever sounds there were in the streets came to her softened and mellowed over the snow-laden ground, and as she listened she felt a great wave of inward happiness surge into her heart and make the possibilities of life seem very different to her from anything she had ever dreamed of before. The snow, the sound of chiming Christmas bells, worked upon her, and made her feel that it would be easy to be good, and that her days ought all to be like this; that she would make them so, serene and melodious, every one a festival.

She heard Miss Blake stirring in the next room, and tore herself away from her dreams to begin the day well with a prompt appearance at the breakfast table.

"It seems to me that if father were only here I wouldn't have a thing left in the world to wish for," she said happily, spearing a gold-brown scallop with her fork and eating it with relish.

Miss Blake put down her coffee-cup just as she was carrying it to her lips, and her face wore the curious expression that Nan had so often noticed there and could never account for. But the girl was too busy with her own thoughts to regard it to-day, and the governess hastened to respond:

"Then next year, please God, you will be quite entirely happy. And a year is not long to wait."

"No, indeed!" broke in Nan. "Why, I never knew the time to go as quickly as it does lately. It doesn't seem any while at all since you came, and you've been here over two months. Just let's think what we'll do next Christmas, when father is home. To begin with, I'm going down to the dock with Mr. Turner, so that when the ship comes in he'll see me the first thing. Then we'll come up here, and you and Delia will be waiting to welcome him at the door, and there'll be decorations and things and—"

"You forget, dear Nan," Miss Blake said, gently interrupting her, "that I shall not be here then."

The girl's face fell and the light died out of her eyes. Then she brightened again suddenly.

"Oh, you must, you must! Why, my father will want to see you. Of course you'll be here. You'll have to stay and meet him. You can surely do as much as that. You don't know how dear my father is! And so handsome and good! Why, if you once saw him you couldn't possibly be afraid. He's simply the kindest man in the world, and when he smiles at you, you just love him—you can't help it."

Miss Blake herself smiled faintly. "I am sure he is all you say, Nan," she replied. "But listen! There go the first bells. We must hurry or we shall be late for church."

The girl rose and made her way rather slowly to the stairs. Somehow she felt less light-hearted than she had done a few minutes before. What was it? She could not understand. The world had seemed all joy and sunshine to her a quarter of an hour since, and now there was a cloud over her heart that dimmed for her even the radiant prospect of her father's return.

"I feel just like sitting down and having a good cry—if I ever did such a thing," she said to herself as she fastened on her new hat and tried to be glad that it was so becoming.

But as she and Miss Blake walked along the streets in the midst of a crowd of happy, chatting church-goers her spirits rose, and she nodded gayly to the Buckstone girls and Harley Morris, and broke into quite a ripple of laughter as John Gardiner overtook them and asked if the wheel he had brought her the night before had proved a good one.

"Oh, it was immense!" answered Nan, merrily.

The services were beautiful, and Nan entered into them heart and soul, listening to the sermon with rapt attention and letting her fresh young voice swell out jubilantly in the dear, familiar carols as she had never done before.

As they went out of church Miss Blake said to her softly:

"You won't mind going on without me, will you, Nan? I have a little errand to do before I go home. Tell Delia I'll be back in time for dinner."