"I am deeply sorry," said Mr. Turner, "and can only apologize in my friend's name for any annoyance his daughter may have caused you. Of course I cannot agree with you that she annoys you purposely. A child of William Cutler could not well be other than large-hearted and generous. She may be a little undisciplined perhaps, but it shall be attended to, Madam! I assure you the matter shall be attended to."
Mrs. Newton rose. She had called upon Mr. Turner to state her complaint against Nan Cutler. Now that was accomplished she would go; only she made a mental vow that if the lawyer were not as good as his word, if he did not take immediate steps toward rectifying the matter, she would follow it up herself and see that she was relieved of what, in her anger, she called "that common nuisance."
Meantime Nan herself was going about with a dead load of misery on her heart. Delia had gone to the Newton's house early in the morning to inquire after the sick child's condition and to repeat Nan's story to her mother, but that lady was "not at home," and Delia understood that to mean that Mrs. Newton declined to receive either her or her explanation. She went home angry and disappointed.
"I guess the little girl ain't much hurt," she announced to Nan. "She's in bed to be sure, but I guess that's more on account of her cold than anything else. She isn't going to be crippled, Nan, now don't you fret. She'll be all right. Now you see if she ain't."
Nan's own flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes, the result of her yesterday's chilly adventures, worried the good woman not a little. If she had dared she would have liked to "coddle her child," but Nan was not one of the coddling kind, and would have scorned being made a baby of. She went about the house in one of her unhappy moods, restless and wretched and unable to amuse herself, and finding the hours never-endingly long.
When the bell rang she welcomed the sound as a grateful diversion and ran to the balusters and hung over the railing to see who might be the new-comer. She was glad of any break in the monotony of such a miserable day.
When Delia opened the door and admitted Mr. Turner, Nan's heart gave a big leap. Visions of what might be in store for her, the result of Mrs. Newton's action against her, thronged her brain and made her shudder with apprehension. What if Mr. Turner had come to say that she was to be sent to the House of Correction, or some horrid boarding-school where one don't get enough to eat and where one couldn't poke one's nose outside the door. A set expression settled on the girl's face that did not augur well for her reception of whatever plan the lawyer might have to propose.
When Delia came to call her, she sighed. She saw plainly enough that Nan's "contrary fit" was on, and she wondered how much the lawyer would accomplish by his visit under the circumstances.
Nan went down to him sullenly determined to stand by her guns and absolutely refuse to be committed to either a reformatory or any other establishment of a similar character.
"How do you do, my dear?" was Mr. Turner's kindly greeting as the girl entered the room.
Nan replied, "Very well, sir," thinking, at the same time, that she would not be disarmed by kindness nor permit herself to be cajoled into doing anything she did not wish to do. No one really had the right to order her about, and she would resolutely oppose any one who assumed such a right.
But presently she found herself telling her father's friend the story of yesterday's disaster, quite simply and with entire willingness.
"So," Mr. Turner said at the conclusion, "I thought that the good lady must have made a mistake. I felt pretty sure your father's daughter would never be guilty of cowardice nor of deliberately planning to destroy the peace of any one. I knew you could not be the girl Mrs. Newton described. She seemed to think you were—why, my dear, she gave me to understand that you were quite wild and lawless; that you were a bad influence in the neighborhood, and that you were so with full consciousness of what you were doing. We must explain to Mrs. Newton! We must explain!"
"I don't lie!" declared Nan. "And I'm not a coward, and I don't try to make her mad or hurt her children, but I do climb trees and I do race and do figures on roller-skates, and I do do the rest of the things she says I do and that she doesn't like."
"And your school?" ventured the lawyer.
"I don't go any more," announced Nan. "I had a fight with one of the teachers, and so I left."
Mr. Turner gazed suddenly upon the floor.
"And this 'fight' with the teacher? Do you remember the cause of the disturbance?" he asked, looking up after a moment.
"She struck me with her ruler. I had a rubber baby doll, it was the weeniest thing you ever saw, and she wore false puffs, Miss Fowler did, and one day, when I was at the blackboard and she was looking the other way, I just dropped the baby doll into one of the puffs that the hair-pin had come out of, and that was standing up on end, and it looked so funny on her head, the puff with the baby doll standing in it, that all the girls laughed, and then she asked me what I had done, and I told her, and she struck me. I wouldn't have said anything if she had just punished me. I knew it was wrong to pop that doll on her head, but I just couldn't help it—it looked too funny. But when she struck me! Well, I won't be struck by any one—and so I left."
The lawyer meditated in silence for a moment. Then he said:
"Well, my dear, I think I understand the condition of things here. Without doubt it is high time something were done. Your father, when he went away, gave me full authority to make such arrangements for you as I might feel were necessary, but until now I have rather avoided taking upon myself any responsibility. Possibly I have neglected my duty toward you. But now all that shall be changed. Don't you think if I were to send you—"
Nan's eyes blazed. So it was as she had felt sure it would be! She was to be sent away! She did not wait for the sentence to be finished.
"Send me to the House of Correction? I won't go, sir! I'll run away first! Or a horrid boarding-school, neither. I guess my father didn't mean me to be made unhappy, Mr. Turner; I guess he didn't mean any one to have authority to send me to awful places just because Mrs. Newton says so, away from Delia and things. You needn't send me anywhere, for I'll run away as sure as you do."
"I'll run away first!""I'll run away first!"
"I'll run away first!""I'll run away first!"
"Slowly—slowly!" cautioned Mr. Turner. "You go too fast! If you had waited for me to finish my sentence you would have discovered that I meant to send you neither to the House of Correction," here his eyes twinkled with amusement, "nor to a 'horrid boarding-school.' What I was about to say was that I propose to send you a lady who will teach you here at home, who will be a friend and companion to you and whom you will be sure to love. It is rather a curious coincidence that just the other day I was talking to a lady who is anxious to procure just such a position as this with you, and I am rather inclined to think that she would be willing to come here and undertake it. At all events, I have written to her asking her to consider the plan and in a day or so I shall know her decision. If she concludes to come—if I can induce her to come—I shall feel that you are very fortunate. You will forgive me if I say that while I disagree with Mrs. Newton in most respects regarding you, I feel with her that you are somewhat—well, somewhat ungoverned and in need of just the sort of discipline that I am sure Miss—the lady I speak of can maintain."
He paused a moment, but when he saw that Nan made no comment or objection he continued placidly:
"You will hear from me in the course of a day or so, as soon as I receive word from the lady herself. As I said, you will be very fortunate if I can secure her services for you—more fortunate than she will be, I fear," he said to himself, catching a glimpse of Nan's set mouth and flashing eyes as he made his way to the door. Later, when he recalled her expression, he was almost inclined to hope that the lady would decide to refuse the office. He thought her acceptance of it might involve her in rather more serious difficulties than he had foreseen when he wrote to her in the first place.
As a matter of fact, Nan was in a rage at the thought of a stranger coming into the house to interfere with her and Delia, to teach her what she did not want to learn, and to govern her when her sole idea of happiness was to be free and untrammeled. Even Delia resented the new-comer's intrusion. Had she managed the house for fourteen years now, ever since Mrs. Cutler's death, only to be set aside and ruled over by the first stranger who chose to imagine her position of governess to Nan gave her the right to interfere in household affairs? For of course she would interfere. Nan had drawn a vivid mental picture of the governess, which through her persistence in repetition, had begun to seem an actual description to herself and Delia.
"She's tall and thin and lanky and old!" declared the girl whenever the governess, who had accepted the appointment, was mentioned. "She has horrid sharp eyes that spy out everything, and she wears glasses. She'll never laugh because she'll say 'giggling is frivolous,' that's what Miss Fowler used to say, and she'll talk arithmetic and grammar and geography the whole blessed time. She'll snoop in your closets, Delia, and into my bureau drawers, and she'll find out everything we don't want her to know. Her hair is black and shiny, and I guess she parts it in the middle and makes it come to the back of her head in a little hard knot. Oh! I know just how she looks! I can see her every time I shut my eyes—the horrid thing! Just like Miss Fowler at school! And how I'll hate her! I'll hate her just as much as I did Miss Fowler. I'll hate her more, because I can never get rid of her: she'll always be here. Don't you fix up her room a single bit, Delia. Make it look as awful as you can. Then perhaps she won't like it and'll leave. I guess after a little while she won't think it agrees with her to live here. Then we two'll be alone again, and I tell you, won't we be glad, Delia?"
In her heart Delia thought they would. She did not follow Nan's advice to make the governess' room look "as awful as she could." She swept and dusted it thoroughly, and set all the furniture in place, as she had been accustomed to do for the last fourteen years, and when she had finished the place was as uninviting as even Nan could have desired. In fact, there was nothing attractive in the whole house. The furniture was all good and substantial, but Delia had a way of ranging it against the walls in a manner that made it seem stiff and uncompromising. When a piece needed repairing, and with Nan about, many a piece needed repairing often, it was stowed out of sight in the trunk-room, or the cellar, and the carpets, which had been rich and fashionable in their day, were allowed to lie now long after they had become threadbare and faded. Delia kept the handsome paintings veiled in tarlatan winter and summer, and she never removed the slip-covers from the parlor sofas and chairs, whatever the season might be. Nan did not care, because she knew nothing different, and there was no loving, artful hand to make the best of the things and turn the house into a home.
Mrs. Newton had shivered as she entered the place; it seemed dark and cold and forbidding to her, and she felt the mother-want at every turn, but this had not made her any more lenient with Nan. Perhaps the governess would make no allowances either. Delia made up her mind that if things really came to the pass where Nan was being abused, she in person would "just step in and say her say, if it lost her her place." She often talked of things losing her her place when the fact was that she herself was the place: if it had not been for her the house must have been closed, and Nan sent to boarding-school. Mr. Cutler would never have trusted the care of his girl to a strange servant.
"Yes, Ma'am," Delia said to herself, as she pushed the governess' bed flat up against the wall. "Yes, Ma'am! if I see her going for to abuse Nan, I'll set to and give her a piece of my mind such as she ain't likely to have got in one while, I tell you that," and she gave the bureau a vicious tweak and pulled down the shade with a resentful jerk.
When Nan saw the room she was disgusted.
"Why, Delia Connor! you haven't done a single thing I told you to," she cried out angrily.
"I've swept and dusted it and that's all there was to do," retorted Delia.
"It looks perfectly lovely," resumed Nan, stamping her foot. "Do you s'pose I want her to think we're glad to have her, and that we've prepared for her? Well, I guess not! If she once gets into as good a room as this she'll never go—she'll just hang on and on, and nothing in the world will make her budge."
"What do you want me to do?" asked Delia with irritation.
Nan looked at her scornfully for a moment. "Do? Why, what I told you to do! Make the room look awful—perfectly hideous. Make it so she can't help but see we don't want her here. Make it a hint—and a strong one too."
Delia folded her arms deliberately. "Well, whatever you want to act like, Nan," she said, "I can tell you I ain't going to do anything unladylike, so there!" and she stalked out of the room with dignity.
Nan surveyed the place in silence. What was to be done? If she removed all the furniture but the bed and the bureau and left the governess nothing to sit down on, it would only reflect discreditably upon the family's supply of household goods. If she carefully sifted back the dust Delia had just removed, it would merely prove that the people in this house were of a slovenly and careless habit, and that they were sadly in need of some one to oversee their work. Moreover, would a person as dull of feeling as this governess must be, appreciate the hint conveyed in so delicate and indirect a manner? No. She would be sure to lose the point. Nan felt it would never do to take any risk of her misunderstanding. Whatever she did must be unmistakable and absolutely direct.
She racked her brain to discover just the right thing, but she was rewarded by no brilliant idea, and she felt crosser than ever by the time noon had arrived. But suddenly, at the luncheon table, she gave a wild leap from her chair and clapped her hands frantically, while Delia almost let a dish fall in her surprise at this sudden and unexpected demonstration.
"For the land's sake, what is it now?" she demanded, while Nan caught her around the waist and whirled her about the room, vegetable dish and all.
"I've got it! I've got it!" screamed the girl, convulsed with inward laughter. "I've got the best scheme in the world. Delia, you old duck! Oh, won't it settle her though! Won't it settle her?" But she would not reveal who was to be settled, nor how, though Delia pleaded earnestly to be enlightened and even offered to help her make caramels as a bribe.
"No, thank you, Ma'am! I wouldn't have time to boil 'em. I'm going to be as busy as a beaver all the afternoon, so no matter what happens don't you disturb me," continued Nan, importantly.
Delia shrewdly suspected that the scheme afoot had something to do with the governess, but she did not dare suggest it.
"Oh, well, what I don't know I can't cry over," she said to herself, "and when Nan's like this, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't stop her, so I might as well hold my tongue. But I'll say this much, I don't envy that governess her job, whoever she may be."
Meanwhile Nan had gone to her own room and shut and locked the door. Her next move was to take her night-dress from its hook and slip it over her head.
"Now I'm going to rehearse," she announced to her reflection in the glass. "First I must get my eyes to seem kind of wide and starey. No! not this way. They must look like licorice-drops in milk. There! that's better! All expressionless, and that kind of thing. I s'pose I might shut 'em, some somnabulists do; but then I'd be sure to trip over the furniture and stub my toes, and give the whole business away. No, I must keep my eyes open; that's certain. Then I must glide when I walk. My step must be light and ghostly and noiseless. I must be sure to have it ghostly and noiseless. Now—eyes staring—one, two, three—step ghostly and noiseless—Oh, bother! What business had that footstool in my way? If I knock things over like that I'll wake the house, and Delia would know in a minute what I was up to. There! get into the corner, you old thing! Now again! Eyes staring—step ghostly—and noiseless—voice low and mournful, but I must manage to make her understand every word. Now once more—voice low and mournful—
"Alas! alas! why did she come?—why did she come? (No, I can't say that! It sounds too much like 'Why did he die! Why did he die?' But the alas is good! That sounds real creepy and weird.) Now then—Alas! alas! This is the worst thing that ever happened to me in all my life! My dear, old home! To think that anybody who isn't wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear, old home! O father! father! come home from Bombay, and save me from this awful woman. Turn her out of the house! Make her go back where she came from! Her hated form haunts me in my sleep, and I dream all night of her as I see her in the daytime—tall—and thin—and lanky—with her hair all dragged into that ugly little knob behind at the back of her head! O father! father! her eyes are like needles! They prick me when she looks. Save me!—save me! My heart will break if some one doesn't come and rescue me from this terrible person. Take her away—take her away! Ah—I see her! I see her! Get away—get away! You awful creature! Don't you know you are causing an innocent girl to perish in her youth? Alas, she won't go! Then listen, reckless woman! and remember this warning—'the way of intruders is hard!'
"There! that ends it off with a sort of threatening dreadfulness that ought to scare her stiff. After I've said that in a whisper to freeze her blood, I'll turn silently from her bedside and glide noiselessly from the room, wringing my hair and tearing my hands; no, I mean just the other way, and if that doesn't fix her, why—I'll have to go over it all again, of course, so I won't forget. Perhaps it would be a good idea to write it down and learn it off by heart."
The idea in fact recommended itself so thoroughly to her that she followed her own suggestion without further delay and wrote off the entire harangue at once, making it, if possible, even more eloquent and harrowing than it had been in the original. It seemed a very long, wearisome task, to commit it all to memory, but she did not grudge the trouble. She had never attempted anything that looked like study with so much willingness. The afternoon slipped away like a dream, and as soon as dinner was over she set to work again, and by bed-time had the thing pretty well under control. Whenever she halted or stumbled she went over it all again with the most patient perseverance.
"I suppose if I had stuck to things at school like this I'd have been at the head of the class," she said to herself with a whimsical sense of her own perversity.
Delia was completely nonplused. She could not imagine what "that child was up to." There were no evidences anywhere of the means she was going to employ in the governess' initiation. Her room was in perfect order, and in Nan's own chamber nothing was unusually amiss. She got no satisfaction from the girl herself, who kept her lips tightly closed, except when she was mumbling over her harangue. It was terribly perplexing—and ominous.
"Good land!" thought Delia in real anxiety, "I only hope she ain't going to do anything too dreadful. I declare, if it weren't that I'm so soft where Nannie is concerned I'd say I'd be glad that some one's coming who may be up to managin' her. I'm free to confess I ain't. If only her mother had lived! Or, if only my dear Miss Belle hadn't gone off to the ends of the earth—! Miss Belle could have managed her! No one could resist Miss Belle, bless her! Ah, dear me, dear me! It's fifteen years, and to think, I'll never see her face again!"
The morning of the expected governess' arrival dawned cold and dreary. Rain fell in torrents, and the streets were drenched and slippery with slush. All day Nan moped in unhappy expectation of her anticipated thralldom. At every sound of rumbling wheels before the door she would fly to the window, torturing herself with the belief that this was the hack which was conveying the tyrant-governess to the victim-pupil, and she felt a curious sort of disappointment when no such vehicle appeared and no such personage arrived, for always the rumbling wheels belonged to some grocer's cart or butcher's wagon, and by evening the invader had still not appeared. Then Nan plucked up courage.
"I shouldn't wonder if she had been switched off the road," she said to Delia, inclining to be quite jolly at the mere thought of such a grateful possibility. And she pictured to herself an accommodating engine whizzing the unwelcome guest off into some remote region from which she would never see the desirability of returning. Nan wished her no ill, but she did not wish herself ill either. She ate her dinner quite contentedly, and was just going to settle down comfortably to some thrilling tale of adventure when Br—r—r! went the bell, and she knew her fate had descended upon her.
She flew to the parlor and hid behind the folding-door. She heard Delia ascend the basement stairs. She heard her come along the hall, and then—it was very strange, but Nan really thought she heard her give a smothered exclamation that was instantly followed by the word of warning, "Hush!"—but she must have been mistaken, for it was only Mr. Turner who was speaking. He was asking for Nan herself. She slipped from behind the door with the hope at her heart that even now, at the last minute, the governess had "backed out." Certainly it looked as if she had, since she saw only the lawyer standing by the hat-stand. She held out her hand to him with a real smile of greeting when—he stepped aside and there stood the governess.
At first Nan thought it must be some little girl, so small and slender looked the figure beside that of the tall man. The eyes beneath the rain-soaked brim of the governess' hat were soft and dark; her hair was brown, and the damp wind had blown it into innumerable little curls and tendrils about her temples, where it took on a ruddy sheen in the gas light. Her nose was delicate and short; her mouth, which was not small, was fascinating from the fact that the parting lips disclosed two rows of perfect teeth. She had two dimples that came and went as she smiled, and in her chin was a small cleft that was quivering a little, Nan noticed. She thought the governess looked as if she were going to cry. Her eyes seemed somewhat "teary round the lashes," and there was no doubt about it—her chin was quivering.
"Pooh!" thought Nan. "I might have saved myself all that worry. She's as afraid as she can be. I guess I'll be able to manage her as easy as pie."
But now Mr. Turner was addressing her.
"Nan," he was saying, "this is Miss Blake. Can't you welcome her to her new home, my dear?"
Nan hung back in awkward silence, but the new governess did not give her the opportunity to make the moment an embarrassing one. She stepped forward, and, taking the girl's hand in her own, said softly:
"Mr. Turner has told me all about you. I hope we shall be very happy together."
She did not attempt to kiss her.
Nan murmured an indistinct "Yes'm," and shrank back against the wall. Delia stood beside the new governess with a very curious expression on her face. For a moment there was silence, and then Mr. Turner broke in upon it with:
"I think it would be well if Miss Blake were to be shown to her room at once. She is drenched with the rain and must be cold and hungry. Will you be good enough, Delia, to get her something to eat while Nan takes her upstairs?"
Nan started forward quickly at the note of rebuke in the lawyer's voice.
"Oh, won't you come to your room?" she asked.
She vaguely wondered what made Delia look so strange and act in such a dazed, uncertain fashion. She thought she must be a sad "'fraid-cat" to be overawed by such a little personage as the new governess.
"Now I will say good-night," said Mr. Turner to Miss Blake, as she started to follow Nan above. "I hope," he added in an undertone, taking her hand, "that you will be happy. Don't become discouraged. Send for me whenever you need me. I am always at your service."
She silently bowed her thanks. Somehow she found it difficult to speak just then. She had been tired and cold before she entered the house, but it seemed to her she had not known weariness or chill until now. She felt herself shiver as she turned away from the lawyer and heard the door close behind him. He seemed to be leaving her alone with an enemy.
Nan certainly looked anything but amicable.
"Here's your room," she announced, as they reached the upper landing. She flung open a door, and the new governess found herself stepping forth into utter darkness, where Nan herself was groping about for matches. The air of the place was cold and damp. It had the feel of a room that was unused. It was barren and cheerless. But in the second preceding Nan's discovery of the matches Miss Blake hoped that when the gas was lit it would seem more inviting. But it did not. It was bare and undecorated, and presented anything but an attractive appearance.
The stranger drew two long pins from her hat without saying a word. Nan turned on her heel and made to leave the room.
"Will you please tell me where I can find some warm water?" inquired Miss Blake.
"Washstand in that little dressing-room. Left-hand faucet," announced Nan, curtly, and marched away.
The governess gently closed the door.
Perhaps if Nan had remained there to see she would have wondered if Miss Blake were quite in her right mind. Her behavior was certainly extraordinary. The tears rained down her cheeks, and she did not try to stop them. She just stood in the middle of the floor and gazed about at the awkwardly-placed furniture, the faded carpet, the bare walls, and the ugly mantel-piece as if she could not take her eyes from them. She turned slowly from one thing to another, and presently, in a sort of timid, hungry way, she stretched out her hand and touched each separate object with her caressing fingers, crying very hard the while and murmuring to herself in so low a voice that no one could have overheard.
Even Nan must have softened to her as she stood there crying softly and smiling through her tears at this bare and unfamiliar room. Even Nan must have been moved to wonder what Miss Blake had suffered that she was so glad to get into such an uninviting shelter as this.
But Nan was down stairs in the basement watching Delia prepare a dainty supper for the governess, and scowling at her as she saw to what trouble she went to make it appetizing and delicate.
"There, Delia Connor!" she burst out resentfully, "you're the worst turn-coat I ever saw in my life! This very afternoon you looked black as thunder when you thought she had come, and now you are just dancing attendance on her, as if she was the best friend you ever had!"
"Perhaps she is," responded Delia, placing sprigs of parsley neatly about the sliced chicken and setting the coffee-pot on the range.
Nan tossed her head scornfully. "Well, I like that! I should think you'd be ashamed! A perfect stranger like her!"
Delia did not answer. She was crushing ice for the olives, and as Nan spoke she bent her face over the table and pounded away in silence. But when she had finished, she lifted her head and said, amiably:
"Oh, you can't tell. By the looks of her I should think she is a good-natured little body. She has the true eyes. When you see eyes like that you can mostly be sure they've an honest soul behind 'em. I shouldn't wonder if she'd be a good friend to any one who'd let her."
"Huh!" sneered Nan, wrathfully, "that means, I s'pose, that you intend to let her. Never talk to me of turn-coats any more, Delia Connor!"
Delia caught up a coal-hod and strode deliberately off toward the cellar stairs. When she came back she was laden down with kindlings and coal.
"What you going to do with those?" demanded Nan, imperatively.
"Build a fire in the library. I guess a spark'll look good to the poor little soul—coming in out of the cold and wet."
This was the last straw. Nan's eyes flashed, and she tore after Delia upstairs, scolding as fast as the words would come.
"The idea! The idea! A fire! 'Poor little soul!' And many's the time I've come in out of the cold and you haven't even as much as lit the gas! Oh, no; never mind me! I can come in out of the cold till every tooth in my head chatters, and you wouldn't care a straw. Why, Delia Connor, we never have that fire lit. You just know we don't! There hasn't been a fire in that grate since daddy went away! You know very well there hasn't, and now the first thing you do is to light it for that horrid governess-woman that's going to boss you 'round like anything, and make me do all sorts of hateful things. I tell you what it is, Delia Connor, you don't care a single thing about me. I know just how 'twill be. You'll help her to do anything she wants to, and you'll never stand up for me a bit. It's mean of you, Delia! It's downright mean of you. And it's just because she's got those dimples and things, and smiles at you as if you were her best friend. But she needn't think she can manage me. I'm not going to be ordered about by her, if she has got a soft voice and shiny eyes!"
Nan and the fire sputtered and blazed as though they were trying to see which could outdo the other, and Delia stood by looking first at this one and then at that with a good deal less fear of the sparks from the grate than of those from Nan's eyes.
She knew better than to try to pacify the girl when her temper was at such a white-heat, and she inwardly wondered what would happen if the governess should come down while it was yet at its worst. As if in answer to her question they heard the sound of an opening door above, and immediately after Miss Blake's light steps upon the stairs. Nan bit a word off square in the middle and set her lips tightly together. Delia removed the "blower" from the grate and the dancing flames leaped high up the chimney and sent a ruddy glow about the room. The only sounds to be heard were the comfortable ticking of the tall clock in the corner and the low purring of the fire behind its bars. Miss Blake came down the hall and paused on the library threshold.
"Oh, how jolly!" she cried, clapping her hands like a delighted child and running forward eagerly to the hearth. "How perfectly jolly! Don't you think an open fire is the most comfortable thing in the world? And I always loved this one particularly—I mean this kind," she corrected herself quickly.
Nan made no response. She sat in her father's study-chair as stiff and stolid as a lay-figure in a shop window, with her lips drawn primly over her teeth.
Miss Blake was, or pretended to be, unconscious of her attitude, however, and went on talking as easily as though she had the most appreciative of listeners.
"When I was a little girl I used to love to cuddle down here on the hearth-rug—I mean I used to love to cuddle down on the hearth-rug and look into the burning coals. I used to see all sorts of wonderful things in the flames. They used to tell me I'd 'singe my curly pow a-biggin' castles in the air,' but I didn't mind, did I—I mean I didn't mind," she caught herself up quickly.
Delia coughed behind her hand and hurriedly left the room in order to get Miss Blake's supper, which she meant to serve upstairs for the occasion.
As soon as she was gone the new governess turned toward Nan in a strange apologetic sort of way and said:
"I think, if you'll excuse me, I'll just cuddle down on the rug as I used to do when—when I was a little girl. It seems so good to get back—to an open fire that it makes me quite homesick. You won't mind, will you?"
Nan gave a grunt that was meant for "No," and the new governess plumped down upon the floor with her chin in her palms and her elbows on her knees, looking so much like a little girl that for a second Nan had a wild impulse to plump down beside her and inquire, by way of opening the acquaintance—
"Say, does your hair curl like that naturally—or does your mother put it up at night?" or something equally introductory and to the point. But of course she did no such thing, and when Delia reappeared she found them regarding the fire in perfect silence.
At the sound of her step Miss Blake lifted her head and gave Nan a bewildering smile.
"How stupid I have been! Do forgive me!" she said. "We have been having what the Germans call 'an English conversation,' haven't we? I was thinking so hard I quite forgot you—and myself. Ah, what a pretty supper! But I put you to so much trouble," and she turned on Delia two very grateful eyes, while she jumped to her feet with the lightest possible ease.
Delia beamed down upon her beatifically and gave an extra touch to the dainty tray. Nan from her chair scowled darkly upon the whole performance. Delia had deserted her cause; had gone over bodily to the enemy—that was plain. But she needn't flaunt her defection in Nan's very face. Why, it was positively disgraceful the way Delia fetched and carried for this person already, and looked, all the while, as if she could hardly keep from dancing for very joy at the privilege. Well, this governess needn't think that Nan was the kind to be won over by a few smiles and some flickering dimples. When Nan said a thing she meant it and she stuck to it, too. She wasn't a turn-coat like some folks she knew.
"'Alas, alas! my dear old home—! To think that anybody who isn't wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear old home! Oh, father, her eyes are like—' Good gracious! all that description part would have to be changed!" Nan pulled herself together with a visible jerk. How could she speak of "needly eyes" when those of the governess were so deep and soft and gray that they made you feel like—no, they didn't either; but they weren't needly all the same. No! That whole description part would have to be changed. Bother! Well, if it came to that she guessed she could do it! "Her hated form haunts me in my sleep, and I dream of her all night as I see her in the daytime—little and dear, with her hair all shimmery and soft and her eyes kind of kissing you softly all the time, and—" Goodness! that would never do! Why it would be crazy to call on one's father to rescue one from a person like that. Well, she'd leave out the description altogether, that's what she'd do. She—
"Did you speak?" asked the governess, in her musical voice, turning toward Nan inquiringly, and then the girl suddenly realized that she had been mumbling her thoughts aloud.
"No, I didn't," she responded, with irritation. "It was too bad," she declared to herself it was, "that after all the trouble she had taken to learn the thing by heart, she should be pestered to death by having to make changes in it this way—at the last minute, too. Why wasn't Miss Blake tall and lanky and needly-eyed and a fright, she'd like to know? It was just like her, though! So contrary! To change about and upset all Nan's plans. Well, as long as there was so much fuss about the thing, she s'posed she'd give it up."
"She's so little, it'll be easy enough to manage her. I guess it isn't worth while. I can just say, to-morrow or next day, 'Miss Blake, I've come to the conclusion you don't suit,' and she'll go right off. She may cry a little, but I won't mind that; and if she begs to stay, I'll say, 'Now there's no use teasing! When I once say a thing I mean it!' and that will settle her once for all."
Delia was pressing the governess to take more supper when Nan again waked to what was going on about her.
"Why, you don't eat any more than you used—I mean than a bird. Do take a little more chicken, do! And a cup of coffee, nice and hot, that's a good—lady!"
It was really too humiliating! It was more than Nan could bear. She sprang to her feet and without a word—with nothing but a glance of withering scorn at Delia—swept out of the room and upstairs to bed.
Miss Blake looked after her with strange, wondering eyes, but made no attempt to follow her. She just turned to Delia and stretched out her hands.
"O Delia! Delia!" she faltered, brokenly.
The woman came to her and took both the little hands in hers. "Bless you, dearie!" she cried. "That I ever lived to see the day! There, there, lamb, don't cry so, Allanah! See, I'm not crying, am I now?" sobbed she, kneeling beside the stranger and hugging her knees wildly. "Oh, but it's glad I am to see your dear face again! Now tell me all about it—how you came to know we need you so bad?"
Nan, in spite of the fact that she assured herself her heart was broken, fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. She slept heavily customarily but to-night her rest was fitful and troubled. She kept dreaming strange dreams that caused her to twitch in her sleep and give queer little cries of distress and moans of fretfulness. Sometimes she seemed to be trying to overtake something that was constantly eluding her. First it was a long, lank creature with piercing eyes and a knob at the back of its head which it seemed to be Nan's duty, not to say pleasure, to shoot off with a paper of needles. Then it was something she must recollect or be put to death for forgetting; some awful harangue that she had been doomed to deliver before Delia and a vast crowd of other people, all of whom were staring at her regretfully and murmuring to one another that it was a shame such a hoyden should be allowed to live; and again it was some dainty little creature with tender eyes and shining hair that Nan longed to follow but could not because of something inside her breast that held her back and would not let her call.
Miss Blake did not go to her room until very late. She and Delia kept up a steady stream of conversation until long after midnight, and even then the governess would not have paused if Delia had not been struck with sudden compunction.
"Dear heart alive!" she cried, scrambling to her feet hastily as the clock chimed twelve. "Here you've been wore out with tiredness and excitement and I keep you up till all hours pressin' you with questions that you ain't fit to answer, just as if we wouldn't have time an' to spare together for the rest of our lives, please Heaven! Now go to bed, dearie, so you'll be all rested and fresh in the morning."
Miss Blake shook her head. "No, not all the rest of our lives together, Delia," she cried, hurriedly; "it can only be for a year at most. You said it would be a year, didn't you? Well, then, you know I could not stay after that."
"Go to bed, dearie," was Delia's sole response. "And may you sleep easy and have no dreams."
She took her upstairs herself, just as if the governess had been a little girl; and was not satisfied until she had brushed out the masses of shining hair and woven them into a long, ruddy braid behind. Then she smoothed the pillow lovingly and with another hearty "sleep well" went down stairs to "do up" her dishes and get the house closed for the night.
When she finally stole up to her own room through the pitchy halls she was glad to see that there was no light in the governess' room and that all was darkness and silence within.
"Good! She's asleep by this time, the dear!" murmured the faithful soul, and was soon snoring peacefully herself, quite worn out with the excitement of the evening.
But Miss Blake was not asleep. Her eyes stared widely into the darkness and her brain was spinning with all sorts of teasing thoughts. She listened to the ticking of her watch beneath her pillow—to the muffled chime of the tall clock in the room below—to the gentle rattle of plaster inside the walls where some hidden mouse was scuttling in search of a stolen supper, and tried to soothe herself into a doze but failed and tried and failed again.
Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed. The sound she heard now was a new one, and one that caused her flesh to tingle. It was the sound of a stealthy hand upon her door. The knob turned noiselessly, the hinges gave a faint whine, and there on the threshold stood a white-robed figure, ghastly and spectral in the pallid light that fell upon it from the cloud-freed moon outside. Miss Blake did not utter a sound and the apparition glided forward with slow, measured steps until it stood beside her bed. Its eyes were staring and wide and fixed.
"It's Nan!" thought Miss Blake, not daring to speak aloud.
The apparition did not remove its gaze. Presently it sighed. Then it raised its head and spoke and its voice was weirdly low and mournful.
"Alas, alas!" it wailed. "This is the worst thing that ever happened to me in all my life. My dear old home! To think that anybody who isn't wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear old home! What does she know of the way I feel? I can never tell her how I hate to have her here, for that would be unladylike. But oh, how I hate it! No, I must keep my lips closed and bear her persecution in silence."
Two white hands were raised and wrung in a way that was truly tragic.
"O father, father!" groaned the ghost, making wild grabs at its hair, "come home from Bombay and save me from this awful woman. Turn her out of the house. Make her go back where she came from. Her hated form haunts me in my sleep and I dream all night of her as I see her in the daytime."
Miss Blake caught her breath in a struggling gasp of dread as to what would come next.
"Tall and thin and lanky, with hair all dragged into that ugly little hard knob at the back of her head!"
The ghost paused, and its uneasy hands clasped each other convulsively while it showed plainly that it was confused in its mind and struggling to grasp a thought it could not express.
Miss Blake breathed a deep sigh of relief. She had really begun to suspect that it was a vision of herself that was haunting Nan in her nightmare. Of course now she knew better. For surely she was not "tall and lanky," and her hair was certainly not "dragged into an ugly little knob at the back of her head." How grateful she was it had not proved to be herself.
"O father! her eyes are like needles."
Miss Blake could have shouted for joy. But who could this awful bugbear be?
"They prick me when she looks! Save me! Save me! my heart will break if some one doesn't come and rescue me from this terrible person. Take her away! She's coming at me with her needly eyes! Daddy! Daddy!"
The uneasy spirit rocked backward and forward in the intensity of its emotion. It stretched out its arms and wagged a threatening forefinger, while it mumbled some unintelligible warning in a voice that faltered and wavered, and then frayed off to a mere wheeze that sounded suspiciously like a snore.
Miss Blake would have risen if she had dared, but she dreaded the effect even the slightest shock might have upon Nan, in what she never doubted was a somnambulistic trance. But when the white-robed figure turned slowly about and retraced its steps to the threshold, she started up and noiselessly followed after to make sure that the girl arrived safely in her own bed and showed no sign of further wandering that night.
Never was a passage from room to room made more deliberately, and when the bed was reached the phantom scrambled into it, dragged the blankets closely about her shoulders and with a sigh of satisfaction settled herself to slumber.
The governess crept back to her own room, thoroughly chilled and shivering with nervousness. It was an hour or more before she felt herself growing drowsy, but at last she dropped asleep and slept heavily until long past the usual rising hour.
Nan waked at her accustomed time, feeling tired and irritable. She found Delia in the kitchen, preparing a tempting breakfast with more than her habitual care.
"Huh!" grunted the girl. "We have hot muffins every morning, don't we? And griddle-cakes! and eggs, and scallops, and fried potatoes, too! Oh, no! we're not making any fuss for the governess. Oh, no! none at all! If I were you I'd be ashamed of myself, Delia Connor!"
Delia pursed her lips together and made no retort.
It did not improve Nan's temper to have to wait for her breakfast until Miss Blake should appear. But Delia made no attempt to serve her, and she was too proud to ask. Happily the delay was not too serious, and the governess appeared at the dining-room door just in time to prevent the muffins from falling and Nan's temper from rising.
"Good morning!" said the cheery voice.
"—morning!" snapped Nan.
"I overslept," continued the governess apologetically; "and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I beg your pardon. But I was very tired. I did not sleep over-well the first part of the night."
"You're not late—or—or anything," said Nan. "I never get up till I feel like it."
Miss Blake made no comment.
"And how did you sleep?" she asked after a moment, her eyes laughing mischievously as though in spite of her, while her face remained quite sober.
"All right," responded Nan, uncommunicatively.
"No dreams?"
The girl shook her head non-committally.
"Now, I wonder whether I could tell you your dream," ventured the governess, the light fading a little in her eyes.
Nan did not encourage her to try.
"You were being pursued by some awful creature—oh, quite a gorgon, I should say!"
The girl lifted her head.
"This relentless creature was deaf to all your appeals, though you appealed to her touchingly, something after this style: Alas, Alas! this is the worst thing that ever happened to me in all my—"
"Stop!" cried Nan, suddenly, with blazing eyes, "I didn't! I didn't! Delia listened. She told on me. You're making fun of me, and you're both of you just as mean as you can be, so there!"
She started up from her chair, which she thrust behind her so roughly that it fell to the ground with a bang, and rushed toward the door in a fury of anger and mortification.
Miss Blake sprang from her place and tried to detain her, crying:
"Nan, Nan! What do you mean? I was only in sport! Come back, dear, and let me tell you all about it." But the girl fled past her, flinging her hand passionately away and spurning her attempt at explanation. A moment later the street door flung to with a loud slam.
The quick tears sprang to the governess' eyes, but she crushed them back.
"Don't mind her, dearie," said Delia, consolingly, but with an effort and a sigh. "She ain't always like this. She's sorter upset just now. She don't mean any harm, and she'll be sorry enough for what she's done come lunchtime. Now, you see."
"But I don't understand," Miss Blake cried. "She said you listened and that you told me, and that we were both making fun of her. She thinks we are in league against her. What can she mean? Why, I was only repeating some nonsense she said in her sleep last night, and I thought she would be amused to hear an account of it. She came into my room and orated in the most tragic fashion. What does she mean by saying you listened and told me?"
Delia shook her head. What she privately thought on the subject she would not have told Miss Blake for worlds.
"If you take my advice," she ventured, "you won't mind what Nan says. She's quick as a flash, but she's got a good, big heart of her own, and it's in the right place, too. Just let her be."
"Let her be?" interrupted Miss Blake, hastily, "not if this is the way she is going to be. That is not what I am here for. I am here to educate her, Delia, and I intend to do it."
Delia could see that she meant what she said. There was a determined expression about her mouth that would have surprised Nan if she had seen it. But at noon, when she returned, the governess' face was as placid as ever. She and Delia were discussing the price of butter in the most intimate fashion possible, and Nan snorted audibly as she heard them agree that it was ruinously high.
Delia had played a poor enough part before, "kow-towing" to the enemy the first thing, but now she had deliberately betrayed her—Nan. Had "gone back on her" in the most flagrant fashion. It was the meanest thing she had ever heard of and she'd pay Delia back, you see if she wouldn't! To listen at key-holes and then go and tell-tale!
"Have you had a pleasant morning?" Miss Blake asked, affably, as Nan entered the room.
She got a grudging affirmative, but nothing daunted she continued: "It is so cold now there ought to be good skating. Perhaps you and I can take a spin some day. Do you skate?"
Again Nan answered "Yes," but this time there was a gleam of interest in her tone.
"When my trunk comes I must show you my skates. I think them particularly fine: altogether too fine for one who skates as indifferently well as I do. I am sure you will prove a much better skater than I am. Somehow I fancy you are very proficient."
"I like to skate, and I guess I can do it pretty well. My father taught me—to do figures and things. I don't know any one who can skate as well as my father!" said Nan, with pardonable pride.
"I used to skate a great deal when I lived in Holland," Miss Blake observed. "There every one is so expert that I used to feel like a great bungler. Seeing others do so beautifully made me feel as though I were particularly awkward, and I really did keep in the background because I was so ashamed of my clumsy performances. Perhaps though, that was only an excuse for my not being able to do better, and one ought not to offer excuses, ought one? Is there any pond near here on which we might skate?"
Nan's eyes gleamed.
"Why, yes," she said. "We could go to the Park, or if you didn't want to go there, there's a sort of a pond they call the 'Steamer,' quite near here. Lots of people skate on it, and it's lovely fun. And there's a place the other side of the Boulevard, where you can coast beautifully. It's a jolly hill. We take our bobs there, and—the boys and me—and—"
"I," suggested Miss Blake, casually—"the boys and I."
Nan blinked her eyes. The correction, however, passed by unresented.
"The folks here think it isn't nice for me to bob, and—and things. They think it's rough!"
"Perhaps," ventured Miss Blake, "that may be because they have seen it done in a rough way, or by rough persons. You know a great deal depends upon how you do a thing."
Again Nan blinked her eyes. She was thinking as she had the night before:
"Pooh! I can manage her," while Miss Blake, quite unconscious of what was going on in her pupil's mind, continued: "I think if the weather holds, we may have some very good sport, you and I. Don't you think so? And now run upstairs and smooth your hair and wash your hands, for Delia will have luncheon ready very shortly, and one must make one's self tidy for meals, you know."
And then a very singular thing occurred. Nan found herself on the stairs in obedience to the governess' command almost before she was aware, and she proceeded to make herself tidy, with no thought of refusal at all.
But at luncheon came the first tug-of-war.
Nan was about to repeat her performance of the morning, namely, to push her chair aside when she had finished eating and unceremoniously leave the table.
"Oh, pardon me!" interposed Miss Blake, quickly. "Please remain at the table! You were excused at breakfast, but I am sure there is no necessity for your running away again. We must pay each other the respect to remain seated until we have both finished eating. You see, I am still drinking my tea, and you must allow me another of Delia's delicious cookies."
It was all said very gently, but Nan recognized beneath all the kind suggestion an unmistakable tone of command.
She thrust her chair back still further.
"I don't want to wait!" she answered, dryly. "I hate sitting at the table after I'm through. You can eat all the cookies you like, only I don't want to wait."
"Ah, but, my dear, I want you to wait," Miss Blake said. "I demand of you no more than I myself am willing to do. We must be courteous to each other, and if you had not finished eating I should most certainly remain until you had. I expect you to do no less for me."
"Well, I can't help it! I don't want to stay and I—I won't!" declared Nan, with a sudden burst of defiance.
"Very well," returned Miss Blake, calmly. "Of course, you are too old to be forced to act in a ladylike manner if you do not desire to do so. But, equally, I am too old to be treated with discourtesy and disrespect. If you are willing to behave in a rude manner and bear the reproach that you will deserve, why, well and good—or, rather, ill and bad! But I cannot sit at table with any but gentle mannered people. Unless you wish to behave as becomes a lady, we must take our meals apart."
There was no smile now on the governess' face. Nan suddenly got the impression that perhaps it would not be quite "as easy as pie" to "manage" Miss Blake. It seemed to the girl that for the first time in her life she had encountered determination outside of her own. It challenged her from every line in the governess' little figure. For a moment she hesitated before it. Then, gathering herself together and summoning her dumb demon, she gave her shoulders a sullen shrug and left the room without a word.
Miss Blake finished her luncheon as though nothing had happened. Then she rose, and, going into the kitchen, said a few words to Delia—words that caused the good woman to blink hard for a second and then exclaimed:
"Yes'm. I will. It hurts me to cross the child, but I s'pose it is best. You have a brave spirit to set yourself against Nan. I wouldn't have the stren'th, let alone the will. But I s'pose you know what you can do."
"Oh, yes, Delia," replied the governess, with conviction. "I know very well what I can do, but I shouldn't know if I did not have you to help me. We're both conspiring for Nan's good, and we have to work together."
The rest of the afternoon Miss Blake spent in unpacking her trunk and in disposing of its contents. Beside the trunk there was a cumbersome case, a hamper, and a large crate such as is used for the shipment of bicycles. Delia gazed at it in wonderment. Did the governess use a wheel? If so, what would Mrs. Newton say? Delia trembled at the thought, and eyed the box with especial interest as it was being carried down stairs and deposited in the basement hall closet.
Nan wandered in about twilight and found the house cheerfully lighted and warm and comfortable. There was a fire in the library grate, and she threw herself into a chair before it and lounged there luxuriously, while above her head the new governess was tripping to and fro, "putting her room to rights," Nan suspected. She wondered about that room. She would have liked to go up there and see if those skates had arrived, but of course she could not do that. The governess must not think she cared to see her when she wasn't forced to. No, indeed!
Later Miss Blake came down stairs, and drawing her chair nearer the lamp, commenced to sew. Presently up came Delia.
"Miss Blake," she said, with an emphasis Nan noticed and did not like, "your dinner is served."
Nan jumped up with an exaggerated yawn. Her hair was rough and disordered, her frock was rumpled and untidy, her hands were obviously soiled. Miss Blake remarked on none of these things. She laid her bit of needle-work upon the table and quietly passed down stairs before Nan.
The table was set for one, and the governess seated herself before the solitary place.
Nan stood at the side of the table in stiff and silent amazement.
"Where's my place, Delia?" she called, ignoring Miss Blake, except for an angry flash of her eyes.
But Miss Blake was not to be ignored.
"I thought you had decided to dine alone," she said. "At least, that was the impression you conveyed to me at luncheon. If you have changed your mind, Delia can easily set your place. Shall she do so?"
The question was simple, but Nan knew what it involved. She was speechless with rage. Her face alternately flushed and paled, while her lips twitched spasmodically.
"I—I—hate you!" she cried at last, with breathless vehemence. "You've no right here. When my father comes he'll send you right away. You see if he don't!"
She flung herself in a paroxysm of anger out of the room.
Miss Blake ate her dinner, it is true, but perhaps it was scarcely strange that her relish of it was not great. Every mouthful seemed to choke her. Delia saw her hand tremble as she raised her tumbler of water to her lips.
"This'll make you sick, dearie, this striving with Nan. She'll never give in! Her will is that strong."
But the governess shook her head.
Nan ate no dinner that night, and the next day she slept late; that is, she remained in bed late. Lying there cross and unhappy, she heard sounds of voices in Miss Blake's room. Occasionally there were other sounds as well; sounds of hammering and the moving of furniture across the floor.
When Nan was "good and ready" she rose and strolled down stairs with an air of nonchalance that was for Miss Blake's benefit, should she chance to see.
She found the dining-room in perfect order and the kitchen deserted. No breakfast, hot and tempting, awaited her as of old. Delia was evidently upstairs, and Nan was too stubborn to call her down. She prowled about the closets and cupboards until she discovered some cold oatmeal, a bit of meat also cold, and a slice of bread. These, with a cup of chilling milk, she gulped down hastily and with a thorough disrelish.
"Ugh!" she exclaimed, "how I hate it—and her!"
It was a cheerless morning. The temperature had risen and a thick rain was falling. There was nothing to do out-of-doors so Nan remained within. It was Friday, and one of Delia's sweeping days. She was shut up in the draughty parlor with a mob-cap on her head "cleaning for dear life," as she expressed it. After a brief experience of the cold and discomfort of open windows and clouds of dust, Nan gave up trying to talk to Delia and wandered out of the parlor as disconsolately as she had wandered into it. By and by she heard Miss Blake's door open and close and saw the governess come forth, leave the house, and walk rapidly down the street. She turned in at the Newton's gate and disappeared behind the vestibule door. Nan had flown to the window to gaze after her.
"Whatever can she want there," wondered the girl.
The question bothered her. She had not been able to get direct news of Ruth's condition because she had not dared inquire again after the way she had been treated, but in a round-about manner she had heard that the child had a fever.
"What fever?" she wondered. "Do people die of fever? If she dies will that be because I left her on the ground while I ran to get that milkman to help carry her home?"
Miss Blake was not gone long, but it was luncheon-time when she returned.
"Ah, good morning!" she said, pleasantly, to Nan, who happened to be in the hall. "I have pleasant news for you. Your little friend Ruth Newton is better, and her mamma says she would be grateful to you and me if we would come in once in a while and help her to amuse the poor child. Will you go with me to-morrow? Mrs. Newton said particularly that she hoped you would."
A curious expression flitted across Nan's face.
"Mrs. Newton hates me," she announced. "She doesn't want me to see Ruth."
Miss Blake drew off her gloves carefully.
"I have explained certain matters to Mrs. Newton, Nan," she said, "and she is quite satisfied that she was partly mistaken in her judgment of you the other day. She says that she is willing to apologize for some of her accusations, and she has written you a little note. Now, come, and we will both go down to luncheon. I see Delia is here to tell us it is served."
"She takes it for granted I'll go," thought Nan, and indeed she went quite willingly, and what was more, remained respectfully seated in her place until Miss Blake gave her permission to depart by rising herself.