"I do know all about it, and I didn't insinuate myself; I was invited. Aunt Helen invited me."
"When did you see her? How did she find you out?"
"I saw her weeks ago and my mother knew all about it. She did not object in the least."
"That's a likely story."
Nan's eyes flashed. "I'll thank you to believe, Miss Sarah Elizabeth Dent, that I don't tell stories."
"Don't you speak to me in that way," returned Aunt Sarah angrily. "March yourself home. You know as well as you're alive that neither your mother nor I ever cross the brook and that you are not allowed to do it either."
Nan wrenched her shoulder from Aunt Sarah's grasp. "I don't care anything about what you do," she said, rebelliously; "my mother knows I go to my grandmother's house, so there."
"We'll see about this," said Aunt Sarah. "Not a step do you go from the house till I have word from your mother. I'd be ashamed to be beholden to them for so much as a crust of bread, and to let them have the chance to patronize you after all that is past is more than my family pride will allow. You knew perfectly well I would never give my consent to your going there and you sneaked off without so much as a word to any one and were gone all day so that I worried——"
"I don't see why you worried," Nan interrupted. "I am often gone all day."