"Oh, let's try and fix up the house, for father's coming home. Mr. Turner will give us some money to pay for repairs, I guess—he always does when pipes burst and things. Won't it be jolly to watch father's face when he comes in and sees it all so pretty here? Poor old papa! Mr. Turner says he may come in the fall, and so we'll have all the summer to work and plan in, and then when he's here, won't we have a jubilation, Miss Blake?"
The governess stooped to pick up a pin, and she did not reply. Then she rose and carried the tea-cups and plates to the washstand, where she began rinsing them carefully.
"When your father comes home I shall not be here, you know," she said simply; "but you will be very happy together, and I am sure he would enjoy a pretty home!"
The radiance in Nan's face faded suddenly. The same dull pain was at her heart that she had felt and shrunk from yesterday. Only now it did not pass away, and all the evening she seemed to be haunted by a peculiar sense of impending misfortune. It was as though she had been reminded of some unhappy occasion that she had tried to forget. Every once in a while after that, when she saw Miss Blake laboriously toiling to renovate some dilapidated piece of furniture, or heard her discussing with Delia the remaining possibilities of this carpet or that pair of curtains, she felt an almost uncontrollable desire to cry out—so sharp was the sudden sting of regret that bit at her conscience—and so keen the pain that pierced her heart.
Miss Blake left her to enjoy her holidays in perfect freedom, but as soon as they were spent the books were brought out again and lessons resumed as strictly as if the discipline of an entire school depended on it.
But study had grown to have no terrors for Nan, and she was not at all aware of the thorough course she was being put through, because it was all accomplished in such an unobtrusive fashion. Miss Blake had a system of her own which she put into practice, and the girl followed her unconsciously with an interest that showed how wise an one it was. Latin and mathematics proved the most troublesome of the tasks, and would perhaps have led to some serious differences of opinion if Miss Blake had not confessed herself at the start "rusty" in these particular branches and suggested that they "go over them together."
"I really never was very strong in either of them, and it will do me good to review," she explained.
So, spurred on by the thought of competition, Nan did her best; went through the declensions with a rush, and quite outstripped her fellow-student in the matter of algebraic problems.
History was always simple enough with Miss Blake to make it seem like the most dramatic of romances, and the girl discovered a fresh interest in the Roman heroes when the scenes of their exploits was so graphically described to her, and when she could build up the ancient city for herself by the aid of Miss Blake's admirable photographs of the present.
"It seems to me you have done more traveling than any one I ever knew!" exclaimed the girl for the hundredth time one day.