Nan led the way past the cold, formal dining room, with its polished table and high-backed carved chairs. The little old lay shuddered as she glanced in. “It will be hard to get used to having Sister Ursula’s place always vacant,” she said.
“I knew it would, dear Aunt Dahlia,” the girl replied, as she put an arm about the little lady, “and that’s why I have planned to have our dining room somewhere else.”
They had reached the ground floor and the girl opened a door. Miss Dahlia glanced in and then she exclaimed with real pleasure, “Nan, how charmingly you have arranged this little room!”
It had formerly been the maids’ dining room. It was on a level with the ground. The wide windows opened upon the garden, a lilac bush, close to the house was fragrant with bloom, and a mocking bird, somewhere near, was singing joyously. But it was the inside which had been transformed as though by magic. Nan had scrubbed the creamy walls and woodwork and had hung blue and white draperies at the sunny windows, while at one side stood a high long basket-box of drooping ferns. The table was daintily set with blue bird dishes which Nan had used in boarding school when she had a spread for her friends. There were only two chairs, and, since Miss Ursula had never dined in this room, the loneliness of one gone could not be so keenly felt.
“Be seated, my lady,” the merry girl said as she drew out the chair that faced the garden. “You are now to partake of the very first meal that your new cook has ever prepared.” Miss Dahlia was delighted with the dainty luncheon. Nan chatted joyously, although whenever she was alone, she pondered deeply on how to solve the serious problem that was confronting them.
CHAPTER XXXI.
NAN’S PROBLEM.
That morning when Nan had been in the village of San Seritos, she deposited in the bank the money which Miss Ursula had left in her keeping. The interest from the few thousand dollars would be sufficient, the girl thought, to provide comforts and even some luxuries for Miss Dahlia, but the necessities Nan wished to earn, knowing that if they used the principal, it would soon be necessary to tell Miss Dahlia of the lost fortune, and the home which the little old lady so dearly loved, would have to be sold.
Before leaving Pine Crest Nan had talked the matter over with Mrs. Dorsey and that kindly woman had written a letter telling whoever might be interested that in her opinion Nan Barrington was competent to teach the younger children all of the required studies, as well as languages and the harp.
The girl was confident that she could obtain a position as governess but that would necessitate hiring a maid or leaving Miss Dahlia alone, and neither of these things did she wish to do.
A week had passed when one morning Nan sitting on the sunny veranda reading the paper chanced to see in the want column something which she thought that she would like to investigate.