He went off quickly, and Nell turned to Dick.
"Will you order the fly, Dick?" she said, in a tone that was quite new to him.
It was, though the boy did not know it, the voice of the woman who has just parted with her girlhood.
"Don't wait, please. I shall be all right."
Dick left her, and Miss Angel came down to her timidly.
"Is there anything I can do—I know what it is. You feel faint——"
Nell smiled.
"God grant you may never know what it is," she thought, looking up at the girl's face, and feeling years and years older than she.
"Perhaps it is," she said. "But I shall be all right the moment I get into the air."
Miss Angel whipped off her shawl, which Dick had insisted upon her wearing.