"Bridget told me to come right up," explained Nan. "Is Ruth out?"

"No, taking a nap in the nursery. She'll be awake soon now, I'm sure.

Take off your things and sit down."

"Won't I be in the way?"

Mrs. Newton patted her on the shoulder. "No, my dear, you won't. On the contrary, it will be very pleasant to have you here to take a cup of tea with Miss Blake and me; will you excuse me a moment while I go and call Katy to bring it up?"

"I thought you were in your room," said Nan to Miss Blake as their hostess left the room.

"Did you need me? Why didn't you knock? What was it you wanted me to do?"

"Oh, nothing. I didn't need you--that is, there wasn't anything I wanted you to do, only--it seemed kind of lonely, and so I came over here."

"And I thought you would be locked in your own room for the rest of the afternoon. How dreadfully mysterious we all are nowadays."

Nan laughed. She got out of her coat with a tug and a squirm and flung it on the lounge. Then she wrenched off her hat (the Sternberg affair) and tossed it carelessly after the coat.

Miss Blake bent over and straightened the untidy heap without a word.

"Delia is making mince pie-lets for dinner," announced Nan.

"How jolly of her!" said Miss Blake.

"Huh!" exclaimed Nan. "She said you told her to."

The governess smiled.

Mrs. Newton came in a moment later and after her Katy with the tea-tray.

Nan sprawled down on the rug in complete comfort while Miss Blake and Mrs. Newton sipped their tea and talked of all sorts of things, to which she hardly listened.

She was full of her own thoughts, and somehow they were all connected with the governess. In fact, her influence seemed to pervade everything, and Nan often wondered how the house would seem without her, now that they had "sort of got used to having her around."

Without a doubt she made herself useful. And somehow she managed to make people depend on her in spite of themselves. And yet she never made a fuss or exaggerated the things she did. She was always doing "little things "--little things that didn't make any show, and yet they were so kind they "sort of made you like her whether you wanted to or not." This thought came upon Nan with a start, that roused her from her musing and made her sit bolt upright with surprise. Had Miss Blake made her like her, then? After all the reproaches she had cast upon Delia was she no better than a turn-coat herself?

"We had ours built in before we came into the house," Mrs. Newton was saying. "It is a vast improvement. I wouldn't be without it for the world."

Nan p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. She wondered what this desirable thing might be.

"Who did the work?" Miss Blake asked.

"Buchanan. And I'll say this for him, he did it well. I haven't a fault to find. I think you'd be satisfied with him."

"A person doesn't like to put a piece of work like that into the hands of a man one knows nothing about," resumed Miss Blake. "I'm glad to profit by your experience. It may save me, too, a great deal of worry and no little expense."

"Oh, yes," returned Mrs. Newton. "If one can economize on experience it's a great satisfaction. It's the best school I know of. But it's so expensive that it ruins some of us before we're done."

"What's the best school you know of?" asked Nan, curiously.

"Experience," replied Miss Blake.

"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."

"What an elegant way to die!" broke in Nan impulsively.

Mrs. Newton gave an exclamation of real horror at her flippancy.

"Oh, you know what I mean!" the girl hastened to protest. "I think it must be worlds better than being sick, or hurt in an accident, or any of those dreadful, lingering deaths."

"After that I was given over into the charge of some distant connections of my father," continued the governess. "They were good, conscientious people, but they had no children of their own, and did not like other people's. I presume I was not a very captivating baby."

Nan straightened up suddenly. "I bet you were, though," she interrupted. "You must have been a dot of a thing, with crinkly hair and dimples, and mites of hands and feet. I should think they would have loved you--I mean, a poor little lonely baby like you."

Miss Blake smiled. "Well, however that was, Nan, I was brought up very strictly, and I a.s.sure you, I was made to mind my P's and Q's. One could not trifle with Aunt Rebecca! Well, one morning I was sitting at the foot of the staircase playing house. I can see myself now, squatting on the lowest step, my fat little legs scarcely long enough to reach the floor. I had on a checked gingham pinafore, and my hair was drawn tight behind my ears and braided into two tiny tails with red ribbons on the ends. I knew it was against the rule to play house in the hall, anywhere, in fact, but in my own little room--with the doors shut, but somehow I felt reckless that day, and when I heard Aunt Rebecca walking to and fro, just above my head, I didn't scamper off as I ordinarily would have done; I just sat still and said to myself, 'I don't care! I don't care!' It seemed to give me a lot of courage, and I wasn't a bit afraid, even when Aunt Rebecca's footsteps came nearer, and I knew she could see me from the top of the stairs. Indeed, I grew mightily brave; so brave, that after a couple of minutes I raised my voice and piped out: 'Aunt Becca! Aunt Becca!'

"'Well,' answered she, 'what is it? what do you want?'

"Even the severity of her voice didn't dismay me that rash morning.

"'I want Lilly,' said I, airily. Lilly was my precious doll. 'She's in her little chair in my room; won't you please to pitch me Lilly?'

"For a moment Aunt Rebecca hesitated. I think she must have been petrified by my audacity. But she recovered herself and turned, and without a word went to my room and got Lilly from her 'little chair.'

I was as complacent as if it had been quite the usual thing for Aunt Rebecca to fetch and carry for me. Indeed, perhaps I imagined I was inst.i.tuting a new order of things, and that in future she would do my errands, instead of I hers.

"She came back to the head of the stairway and I looked up pleasantly, half-expecting, I suppose, that she would come down and deliver my darling dolly safely into my hands. But she didn't. If I were giving orders she would obey me to the letter. She 'pitched me Lilly.' I gave a dismal wail of dismay as I saw my dear baby come hurtling through the air, but when she landed on her blessed head, and I heard the crack of breaking china, I just abandoned myself to grief and howled desperately. Aunt Rebecca went about her business as if nothing had happened, and by and by I stole off with my ruined dolly and cried to myself in the back yard--because I had no one else to cry to."

"You poor little thing!" burst out Nan, indignantly. "What a detestable woman! As if she could have expected such a baby to know!"