"See here, Nan," she began without waiting, "I want to know what's the matter with you that you treat me so? Me that has waited on you hand and foot and tended you night and day since you was a little baby?"
The girl did not deign to raise her eyes from her book—or else they were so rapidly filling with tears that she did not dare to do so.
Delia gulped. "Can't you answer a civil question?" she faltered, trying to be firm and failing utterly.
Nan cast her book to the floor and sprang up to face the woman with blazing cheeks and eyes that flashed angry fire.
"You'd better ask me what's the matter, Delia Connor!" she burst out in a trembling voice. "As if you didn't know! Do you s'pose I'll bear everything? It's bad enough—your being such an awful turn-coat! You went over to her side the first thing, and every time she bosses me you just stand there and let her do it and never say a word. You let her order me about like everything and never stand up for me a bit. Her—a perfect stranger! Somebody you never saw in all your life before! But that isn't the worst of it! Do you s'pose I'm going to stand your coming to my door and listening at the key-hole when I was rehearsing and then going and telling on me—telling her all I was going to do to her, I'd like to know? You just wanted to get on the right side of her, and it was the meanest thing I ever heard of in all my life. You came and peeked at me when I was rehearsing and then went and told her, and I s'pose you both laughed and had a fine time over it. You thought you were very smart, didn't you? But you got there too soon, Delia Connor, for I had made up my mind I wouldn't do it, so there! But now you've both been so mean, I don't care who knows what I was going to do. I hope you told her that I don't want her here. I hope you told her every bit of that thing I learned by heart on purpose to recite to her. I hope you repeated every word of it. It's true and I hope she knows it. I hope—"
"For the land's sake, Nan, do be still," broke out Delia at last after a dozen futile attempts to stem the tide of the girl's anger. "I didn't listen nor peek nor anything, and you scream so loud she'll hear every word you say. You—now be quiet and let me speak—you walked in your sleep last night. You went into her room and said off a whole lot of balderdash to her—enough to set her against you for the rest of her life—if she ever finds out you really meant it."
Nan gave Delia an imploring, frightened look.
"Delia," she gasped, breathlessly, "do you—do you think she heard?"
Delia shook her head.
"Couldn't say for the life of me," she replied. "Her door may have been open when I came up; I didn't notice."