"Oh!"
"Yes; and it's a school we all have to go to at one time or another," put in Mrs. Newton. "But we might make it a good deal easier for ourselves sometimes if we'd take hints from our friends who have graduated."
"Have you graduated?" Nan asked, half in fun, turning to Miss Blake.
But Mrs. Newton broke in before the governess could reply for herself. "Graduated! Well, I should think so! Why, she has carried off honors! She has taken a diploma—with a ribbon 'round it!"
Miss Blake laughed. "Nothing of the sort, Nan. I've had a few lessons, that is all."
"Oh, tell about some of them, won't you?" cried Nan, eagerly. "It would be lots of fun."
The governess considered.
"Well, yes. I will tell you of the very first lesson I can remember, if you care to hear," she answered, with a wistful smile. "I won't promise it will be 'lots of fun,' though."
"Never mind! Tell it!" And Nan settled herself more comfortably against the governess' knee quite as if that person were, in reality, her prop and stay, instead of being only some one she "sort of liked in spite of herself."
"I think it must have been the first real experience I ever had," began Miss Blake, musingly. "At least it is the first one I recollect. I was the littlest bit of a girl when my mother died; too young to realize it, and my father scarcely outlived her a week. He died very suddenly. They used to tell me that he died from grief. Anyway, he was sitting at his desk looking over some important papers connected with my mother's affairs, when suddenly he put his hand to his heart, gave a faint gasp—and was gone."