The girl leaned forward with a look of real interest in her face.

"Do you think we might?" she asked eagerly.

"I don't see why not. The books might be shifted to the other room.

This might be re--well, re-arranged, and I'm sure it would make a charming dining-room."

"But that ugly old gla.s.s extension back there!" protested Nan in disgust. "Who wants to look at a lot of old trunks and broken-up things when one is eating? If we could only pull it down."

Miss Blake considered a moment.

"Why not take all the old trunks and broken-up things out entirely and make a conservatory of it. It faces the south. Plants would grow beautifully there."

Nan clapped her hands. "Why, that's perfectly splendiferous," she cried. "I never should have thought of it. I say, Miss Blake, let's do it right away, will you? I love flowers."

"Would you take care of them?" demanded the governess with a thoughtful look.

"Uh-huh!" nodded Nan, heartily. "I guess I would!"

"Very well, then," returned Miss Blake encouragingly, "I'll think about it. Perhaps Delia wouldn't consent. You know there is no dumb-waiter in the house, and if she had to carry up all the dishes at every meal, it would more than double her work."

Nan's face fell. "O dear!" she complained. "What a horrid old house!

Can't do a single thing with it! It would have been such fun to change everything about!"

Miss Blake laughed. "Oh, if that was all your reason for wanting the improvements," she retorted. "I thought you wanted to gratify your sense of the beautiful."

"Well, I do," declared Nan.

"Then we'll see what can be done," and the governess set down her gla.s.s of water with a very knowing smile.

After dinner was eaten and Delia had carried away the tray and Miss Blake removed the wonderful folding stand, the governess looked up suddenly and said with unusual gravity:

"Nan, while I am here I hope you will never run out after dark alone again. It is dangerous. Do you understand me, my dear?"

The girl's eyes dropped. Yes, she understood perfectly. When the governess spoke in that low, decided voice it would have been hard to mistake her meaning.

"I had to go to-night," Nan answered, in a suddenly sullen voice.

"If you had waited a few moments I could have, and most willingly would have, gone with you. Never hesitate to ask me. I am always at your service. That is what I am here for."

Nan hesitated. "I--I thought you had gone away--for good," she stammered, lamely.

Miss Blake flushed. "What made you think I had gone away for good?"

she asked, slowly repeating the girl's words.

Nan shook her head and gulped.

"I was in my room," continued the governess, after a pause, "and I heard--"

Nan put out both hands. "I know it! I know it!" she gasped. "But I didn't mean what I said--I didn't, honestly and truly. Before you came I learned it off, and I meant to say it, but that was before I saw you.

I feel different now, and I hope--I hope--"

Miss Blake's hand was laid quietly on hers. "Wait a moment, Nan.

Don't go on till you know what I was going to say. You seem to be trying to explain something that perhaps you might regret later. You think I overheard something you would rather I did not know? What I was going to say is this: I was in my room this afternoon and I heard a man crying 'Chestnuts!' It carried me back to the time when I was a little girl and used to roast them in this very--" she hesitated, then added slowly, "town. So I went out to buy some, that we might have a little jollification together with nuts and apples and perhaps a cookie or two, if Delia would give them to us. That is why I went out."

Nan twisted her fingers and looked down. "And I went out because you did," she faltered. "I thought you had gone away, and I went to Mr.

Turner's to bring you back--if you would come. Say, now, didn't you hear what I said to Delia? I was awfully mad, and I guess I spoke out loud enough so folks on the next block could have heard. Honest now, didn't you?"

Miss Blake did not answer at once, and Nan could see that a struggle of some sort was going on in her mind. When she raised her face her eyes were very grave.

"Yes, Nan, I did hear!" she confessed, honestly.

The girl's cheeks blazed with sudden shame.

"And yet you weren't going to leave?" she said. "You were only going to do a kindness to me?"

Miss Blake shook her head.

"Dear Nan," she answered, smiling wistfully, "a good soldier never runs away for a mere wound. He stays on the field until he has won his battle or--until--he is mortally hurt. I do not think you will ever wish to cut me as deeply as that, and so--and so--I will stay until--the general orders me off the field. The day I hear that your father is to come back, that day I will resign my position in this house. Until then, however, you must reconcile yourself to my presence here, and I think we should both be much happier if you would try to do so at once, my dear."

CHAPTER VIII

NAN'S HEROINE

The strain Nan had given her ankle proved more serious than either she or Miss Blake had expected. It threatened to keep her chained to the sofa for days to come, and the girl's only comfort lay in the thought that now, of course, the governess would not force the question of study, and after she was up and about again she might be able to dispose of it altogether, and save herself any more worry on that score.

But Monday came, and, true to her word, Miss Blake appeared in the library after breakfast with an armful of school-books, to which she kept Nan fastened until luncheon time. It was perfectly clear that there was no escape. Miss Blake was armed with authority, and the girl knew herself to be under control. She fretted against it so persistently that if the governess had not had an enduring patience she must have despaired over and over again under the strain of Nan's sullen tempers, fierce outbreaks, and lazy moods. There were moments when the girl seemed to be fairly tractable, but there was no knowing when the whim would seize her to fall back into her old ways, so that, at the best of times, Miss Blake did not dare relax her control. Then Nan would kick her heels sulkily, and comfort herself with the thought that when her father came home all this would be put an end to. Miss Blake would go. Hadn't she said so herself? And that would finish up this studying business quick enough. She could cajole her father easily into letting her stay away from school, and then--here she would be, as happy as you please, with only those two, Delia and her dear daddy, to look after her, and no one at all would say no to anything she might choose to do. It was a blissful prospect. In the meantime there were lessons, and--Miss Blake.

But after a few days Nan found that, somehow, the lessons were not so hard after all, and she never would have believed that they could be so interesting. While as for Miss Blake--Well, a woman who sits reading "Treasure Island" and such books to one for hours together can't be regarded entirely in the light of a nuisance.

"I never knew geography was so nice before," Nan admitted one day after lessons were over. "I used to hate it, but now, why it's downright jolly! I never saw such beautiful pictures! Where in the world did you ever get so many?"

"I took them myself!"

Nan's eyes widened. "Why, have you been to all these places?" she asked, not a little awe-struck.

Miss Blake confessed she had.

"And you took all these photographs your own self?" persisted the girl.

The governess laughed. "I'm like George Washington, Nan," she said.

"I cannot tell a lie! I did them with my little--Kodak!"

Nan fairly gulped. She would have said "Jiminy!" but she knew Miss Blake disapproved of "Jiminy!" and somehow, she was willing to humor her just now.

"Only," went on the governess, "it isn't a little Kodak at all. It is a very fine camera indeed. Some day, if you like, I will show it to you, and then, perhaps you will be interested enough to care to learn how to take some photographs yourself."