"Just think of having come so late and yet being able to get the best seats in the house," she said, exultantly.

Miss Blake smiled. She understood better than Nan did why the majority of the audience preferred places that were not so near the stage.

Both she and the girl herself soon forgot everything else in their interest in the mysterious tricks that were being performed before their eyes. Of course they knew that all this magic could be explained, but just at the moment it appeared difficult to imagine how.

A man seems really no less than a magician who can take a red billiard ball from, no one knows where, out of mid-air, apparently, and suddenly nipping off the end, transform it into two, each equally as large as the first. Presently he thinks you would like to have a third, and, presto! he draws one out from his elbow. Now a white one for a change!

But it is easy enough to get a white one. He opens his mouth and there it is, held between his teeth. Then he thinks he will swallow a red one. Pop! it is gone! A moment later he takes it out of the top of his head.

Nan noticed that as the performance progressed the tricks grew "curiouser and curiouser," as Alice would say, and the wizard seemed to take his audience more and more into his confidence. He no longer confined himself to the stage, but came tripping down the steps that led from the platform to the middle aisle and addressed, first this one and then that from among his spectators--only Nan again noticed that these always happened to be sitting as they were themselves, in the foremost seats. He induced a man just in front of her to come upon the stage to "a.s.sist" him in one of his "experiments," and the girl trembled lest at any moment he might demand a similar favor of her, for though she was reckless enough as a general thing, she had sufficient delicacy to dread being made conspicuous in such a place as this.

"O Miss Blake," she whispered in the governess' ear, "can't we move back a little? If he should make me go up there I'd sink through the floor!"

"Probably you would. No doubt he would let you down himself--through a trap-door. No, we must stay where we are and we must bear it as best we may. Perhaps he will overlook us."

Nan thought of her hat and the many glances it had drawn to her in the restaurant, and for the first time she had a feeling of mistrust regarding it. Suppose it should fix his eye, with its towering bows and flaming bird-of-paradise! If it did, she would hate it forever after.

But she soon forgot her anxiety in her interest in the wizard himself.

Silver pieces were flung in the air and then mysteriously reappeared in the pocket of some unsuspecting member of the audience who was much surprised at seeing them straightway converted into so many gold ones under his very nose. Innocent-looking hoops turned out to possess the most remarkable faculty for resisting all attempts to link them on the part of any one of the spectators, and yet immediately a.s.suming all manner of shapes and positions in the hands of the dexterous magician himself.

At last a shallow cabinet was set upon two chairs in the centre of the stage, and after a word or two of explanation, the wizard drew first one chair and then the other from beneath it, and lo! the magic cupboard remained poised in midair, without any visible means of support whatever.

"You see, ladies and gentlemen," announced the suave magician, "this cabinet is bare; precisely like Mother Hubbard's immortal cupboard.

Can you see anything there? No! I thought not. Now I will place within it these bells, so; and this tambourine, so; also this empty slate. You see it is empty. It is quite a simple slate, such as any school-child would use, and its sides are entirely bare. Now I close the doors of the cabinet, so; wave my wand, so; and--"

Immediately there followed the sounds of ringing bells and rattling tambourine, while in a moment all of these instruments came flying out of the top of the cabinet as if they had been vigorously flung aloft by hidden hands. The smiling magician stepped forward, opened the doors of the cabinet with a flourish, and lo! it was empty save for the slate, which proved to be covered over with scribbled characters, and which he politely handed down to persons in the audience for examination.

Nan was completely bewildered and so lost to all that was going on about her that she did not realize that the wizard was tripping down the stage steps and making his way affably up the middle aisle again.

It was only when he spoke once more that she woke with a great start, and then to her horror she found he was addressing her.

"I am sure this young lady will not refuse me the loan of her hat for my next experiment," he began with a persuasive smile. "I a.s.sure you, Miss, I will not injure it in the least. You won't object, will you?"

and he held out his hand engagingly.

The girl stiffened against the back of her chair, so disconcerted that she felt actually dizzy.

"Give him your hat," bade Miss Blake, quickly, as if to put an end to their really painful conspicuousness.

Nan obeyed blindly. The smiling magician took it with a profound bow and held it up for all the audience to see.

"Now you perceive, ladies and gentlemen," he remarked, "that there is nothing mysterious about this hat. At least I am sure the ladies do.

To the gentlemen it doubtless seems very mysterious, but that is because they do not understand the art of millinery." As he spoke he made his way up the aisle and to the steps that led to the stage. "It is a beautiful hat. Very elaborate and of a most stylish shape, as you see, but not at all mysterious. Yet I mean to make it serve me in a very interesting experiment, which I think you will admit is exceedingly won--"

But just here he stumbled upon one of the steps, and in trying to recover himself let Nan's cherished head-gear fall and brought his whole weight upon it, crushing it out of all recognition.

"Oh, dear, dear! What have I done?" he deplored in sincerest dismay.

Miss Blake's eyes fell and Nan's lips whitened. Every one was looking at them now, and the magician was making them even more conspicuous by apologizing to them over and over again in the most abject fashion.

"How could I be so awkward! Such a beautiful hat and ruined through my carelessness. I have no words to describe my regret. Do forgive me!

But I promised to return your property to you uninjured, did I not, Miss? So, of course, I must keep my word." He held the battered ma.s.s of ribbons and bird-of-paradise high above his head as he spoke, and then went forward and placed a pistol in the hand of his a.s.sistant on the stage. The man retired to a distance and the wizard held the hat at arm's length as if for a target.

"Now, ready? Then--shoot!"

A second for aim: a report; and the smiling Callmann stepped forward with the hat in his hand, quite whole again and unimpaired.

A shudder ran through Nan as she heard the applause and saw her property held up to public view. She dared not turn her head to look at Miss Blake, and she hardly heard the wizard's voice as he asked to be permitted to use the hat for still another experiment, and she scarcely saw how he placed it on a table, a perfectly innocent looking table, and then proceeded to take from it a mult.i.tude of things--from a gold watch to a clucking hen.

When the hen came to light the audience fairly shouted, and Nan thought she could never in the world get up courage to set that hat on her head again and walk out before the eyes of these quizzical people.

"They'll laugh at me all the way," she thought moodily. "And if they ever see me in the street they'll say, 'There goes that trick hat! The one the hen came out of!' I wish it was in Jericho!"

Miss Blake comforted her as best she could with little hidden pressures of the hand and whispered words of sympathy, but the rest of the performance was torture to them both, and when, at last, it was over and they were well on their way home, Nan heaved a great sigh of relief and tried to summon back her courage by declaring that "I don't care if they did laugh when that hen clucked inside it and he said he was afraid this was what might be called 'a loud hat!' It's heaps better than lots I saw on other girls, so there!"

"I am glad you are satisfied with it," said Miss Blake, simply.

CHAPTER X

EXPERIENCES

For the first time since Nan could remember, the house was full of the air of Christmas preparation. Of course she had always had presents, and she never failed to give Delia a gift, but there was no scent of mystery about the holiday celebration; no delicious odor of a hidden Christmas tree; no sense of unseen tokens; nothing to distinguish the time from an ordinary birthday anniversary. But this year everything was changed, and Nan was as much occupied with her own secrets and surprises as either Miss Blake or Delia, who whispered and dodged and smiled cunningly all day long in the most perplexing manner. But she confined her preparations to her own room, while the governess apparently needed the library and all the rest of the house, too, and Nan found herself barred out of Miss Blake's room by her own stubborn pride which still forbade her to go in without a formal invitation.

She was also locked out of the library which was now being made festive for the coming holiday, so that at times she wandered about quite helplessly in a sort of forlorn state of having nowhere to turn.

She had fallen into the habit of running over to the Newton's while Ruth was sick, and she proved such a tender nurse and entertaining companion that the child's mother looked forward with relief to her visits, and only wished she would come oftener.

"She keeps Ruth so happy and contented. It gives me a free minute to turn 'round in, and is a real comfort."

"I thought you would find her helpful," responded Miss Blake. "She loves children, and they know it and love her back again. She is very gentle with them, and I know you may trust her, for she is as true as steel."

"She's a changed girl, that's the whole truth of the matter. You've simply tamed her, the young savage!"

"Oh, Nan has a fine nature. All she needs is judicious training. If I were not sure of that I should despair many and many a time. She needs judicious training and a world of patience and love."

Mrs. Newton dropped her work into her lap and looked up earnestly into the governess' face.

"Yes, I can believe it. What a rash, head-long sort of creature you must think me! Why, I was as bad as Nan herself, to go over there and simply browbeat her as I did! Do you suppose she will ever really forgive me?"

"I'm sure she has done so already. Nan is generous. She does not bear malice. She has a vast amount of pride but as yet she does not know how to use it."

"I should think it would be enough to break down your health--such constant care and responsibility. It is Nan's salvation to have you with her, but do you think you can hold out?"

Miss Blake pondered a moment and then nodded her head decidedly. "I will hold out," she said staunchly.

"You don't know how boisterous she was, and how it shocked me! At last I grew frenzied, and when Ruth was brought in to me injured in that way, through her fault, I supposed, I lost control of myself entirely, and felt that, come what might, the girl must be attended to. There's no doubt of it, your Nan is improved, and if this neighborhood is not made miserable by her piercing war-cries, her hairbreadth adventures, and her eccentric behavior generally, it is all owing to you. But here she comes herself! Put away your work! Quick!"

Nan knocked politely at the open door.

"Oh, come in, dear!" said Mrs. Newton cordially, and the governess looked at her encouragingly and smiled.