There was an ominous catch in her voice that warned Miss Blake not to pursue the subject. Nan could humble herself to apologize, but to follow the abas.e.m.e.nt up by shedding tears on it was too much for her dignity, and she fought against it stolidly.

But the governess knew her well enough by this time to feel a.s.sured that what she said was true, and she accepted the clumsy, halting "amende" as gratefully as if it had been the most graceful of acknowledgments.

"Dear me," she broke in, in quite a matter-of-fact way. "Do you know that the small hours are getting to be large hours, and we are sitting here as unconcernedly as if it were just after dinner. Come, let us both get upstairs and to bed as fast as our feet can carry us," and she promptly set the example by extinguishing the lamp and helping Nan to shoulder her armful of wraps.

"Oh, by the way," she said, as they readied the upper hall, and the girl was about to make return of the hood, "you may keep it if you will. Accept it and the gloves, with my love, as a sort of recompense for what other things you have missed this evening."

Nan was too overcome by the richness of the gift to make any response at all for a moment. Then she blurted out awkwardly, though in a very grateful voice:

"You're so good to me it makes me--ashamed. You're always giving me things. It isn't right. You give away everything you have."

Miss Blake lifted her chin and laughed gayly over the cleft in it.

"No, I don't," she returned, tip-toeing to drop the gloves, like a blessing, on the girl's head. "I have one or two things which I keep all for myself. But if I like to give presents, do you know what it's a sign of? It's a sign I'm poor. Poor people are always possessed by a pa.s.sion for giving presents. It's true! I've always noticed it!

Good-night!"

And that was the last Nan heard about the affair from Miss Blake.

Unfortunately--or fortunately--it was not the last she heard of it from others, by any means. It was a long, long time before it was allowed to drop.

In the first place, Michael was discharged from the stables, and this led to a vast amount of discussion, for the poor fellow, who was temperate by nature, was thrown out of employment in midwinter, and his predicament seemed a pitiable one to those who really understood the facts in the case.

Miss Blake, when she heard of the affair, had bidden John Gardiner bring the man to her. She heard his story, and then sent him off with a few kindly, encouraging words, and the poor fellow felt comforted in spite of the facts that she had given him neither money nor any definite promise of help. When he had gone she sat for some time thinking busily, her chin in her palms and her elbows propped on the desk in front of her. She was still for so long that John and Nan stole off after a while and tried experiments with the kodak on some back-yard views, and when they came back to Miss Blake's room to ask her opinion on some point of focus they found the place deserted and the governess gone.

The next day Mike was discovered sitting smilingly enthroned in his accustomed place on the lofty box of the livery "broom-carriage," and he vouchsafed the information to congratulating friends that: "Ut's another chanct Oi hav, though how Oi come boy ut ye'll niver know anny moar than Oi do mesilf, for Misther Allen was that set agin me he wuddn't hear a wurrud Oi'd sa'. But Oi have another chanct and ut's mesilf 'll see till ut, ut lasts me me loife-toime."

"O dear!" complained Ruth to Nan, "I never want to hear the name of sleigh-ride again so long as I live. Everywhere I go, they say so significantly: 'We hear you had a very gay time the other night! Well, well! such things wouldn't have been tolerated when I was young!' and then they make some cutting remark about Mrs. Cole, and I'm afraid it's not going to be very pleasant for her after this, for none of our fathers and mothers want to have anything more to do with her. They say her example has been so bad. And one can't have a bit of fun nowadays, for we're all being kept on short rations to pay up for the other night."

But as the weeks pa.s.sed the gossip died away and then every one breathed freer again.

Latterly Nan was filling her part of the household contract with considerably less ill-will than she had shown at the beginning, but even now there were occasional lamentations when the day was especially enticing, and her spirits rose and soared above the pettiness of bed-making and the degradation of dusting. It took her about twice as long to get through with her share of the work as it took Miss Blake, and she could never console herself with the thought that it was because the governess shirked. Occasionally she let her own tasks go "with a lick and a promise," as Delia described it, bat when she saw the thoroughness with which Miss Blake did even the least important thing she had the grace to be ashamed and to determine on a better course in the future. But before she really settled down to a stricter habit of conscientiousness something happened that gave her more of an impulse than a course of lectures would have done.

The winter had been a long and unusually severe one, but by March it seemed reasonable to suppose that its backbone was broken. Nan had preferred the care of the conservatory to the duller and less interesting work of dish-washing, and Miss Blake, in letting her take her choice, had only exacted the promise that her charge was not to be neglected. Nan had, as we know, given her hand upon it, and so the matter stood. The governess never "nagged" her about her duties; she took it for granted that the girl would honorably keep her word.

And indeed for some time she was tolerably thorough, watering the plants and loosening the soil about their roots; sponging the leaves of the rubber trees and palms and picking off all the shriveled leaves and faded petals from the flowering shrubs and keeping the temperature at as nearly the right degree as was possible with such varying weather and their simple device for heating the place.

But she found it was much more of a tax than she had first supposed.

At the start plants had seemed so much more inviting than dishes that she had appropriated the care of them at once, and now that she discovered what her selection really involved she felt almost aggrieved, and was inclined to be cross when she saw Miss Blake's tasks finished for the day while her own was scarcely more than begun.

"Provoking things!" she would declare as she dashed a double spray of water on the rubber trees that did not need it, and gave but a mere sprinkle to the blossoming azalias that did: "if I'd known what a nuisance you were I can tell you I never would have taken you! Here!

will you come off, or won't you?" and she would give some wilted blossom a vicious jerk that would set the entire plant shaking in its pot as though it were trembling with distress at the rough treatment it was receiving. If Miss Blake heard her she gave no sign. Sometimes when they pa.s.sed a florist's window she would stop and look wistfully in at the bewildering display, and Nan would know that she was longing to go in and buy some especially fascinating orchid or unusually rare crysanthemum. But she would not yield to her impulse, for on one occasion the girl had said with a shrug of impatience:

"For goodness' sake don't get any more. It's all I can do to attend to the bothersome things now. I wish they were all in Hong Kong--every one of them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Provoking things!"]

So since then there had been no further additions to the conservatory, and Miss Blake had to check her horticultural ardor or confine it to her window-sill upstairs.

But the plants throve in spite of their ungracious nursing, and when she was not irritated by them Nan was very proud of the fine showing they made.

"I think that double, white azalia is one of most beautiful things I ever saw: so pure and delicate!" said Mary Brewster to Miss Blake, hanging over it in honest admiration one leaden-skied day when she come to carry Nan off to her house to dinner and was waiting while the girl went upstairs to get ready.

"Yes," replied the governess, "I love it! But then, I love all the dear things--even those poor woolly-leaved little primroses that have almost less charm for me than any flowers I know. I'm so glad they are all doing so well. I can't bear to bring a plant into the house and then have it die. It seems almost like murder. But now I must run away. I have an appointment with my dentist at three. It is very good of you to ask Nan to dinner to-night, and I'm doubly glad it happens as it does, for she would have to dine alone if she stayed at home, for I have to go out of town on business and cannot get back tonight. Delia will call for Nan at nine o'clock. Good-bye, and have a pleasant evening!" and she caught up her satchel and was off in a twinkling.

But after she had let herself out of the front door she came back and called Nan to the head of the stairs.

"It's bitterly cold," she said. "I had no idea it was so severe! Be sure you wrap up warmly, Nan, and don't forget your gloves and leggings when you come home. Oh, and the plants! You'll not fail to look after them when you get in--the last thing before you go to bed? I think it will freeze to-night, and they will need extra heat. Now, good-bye again, and G.o.d bless you!"

Nan waved her a vigorous adieu with the towel she held in her hand, and this time the governess was off in earnest.

The two girls followed her out not long after, and went laughing and chatting down the street.

"I've asked Grace and Lu and Ruth to come in after dinner, and we're going to have a candy-pull. I didn't ask John, but I told him what was up, and he said he and Harley and Everett had been wanting to call for some time, and as I'd be sure to be in, he thought they might as well do it to-night. I told him he'd have to 'call' loud, for we'd be in the kitchen, and probably wouldn't hear him, and he said he'd see to it that we did; so I suppose we'll have them too."

Among them all it proved a gay evening, and seemed unusually so, for of late jollifications had been rare. As Ruth said, "they were all kept on short rations to pay up for the other night."

It appeared to Nan when Delia arrived that she had made a mistake in the hour, and had appeared at eight instead of nine; but as it happened Delia purposely delayed in order that her girl might have an extra sixty minutes, and when she pointed to the clock, whose short hand pointed to ten, Nan could only shake her head, and say: "Well, I suppose so--but it doesn't seem as if it could be."

It was so cold that Delia had brought an additional wrap for her, and the girl was glad to avail herself of it when she felt the nip of the freezing air.

"Why, it's much worse than it was this afternoon," she said. "If this is spring, I'd just as lief have winter. I tell you what it is, Delia, it won't take me long to tumble into bed. I'm frozen stiff already. I hope you locked up before you came out, so all we'll have to do will be to go upstairs. I hate to putter about in the cold."

It seemed strange to go to bed without Miss Blake's cheery "Good-night!" ringing in her ears. It was the first time the governess had spent a night away from home since she first came to the house, almost six months ago, and Nan devoutly hoped there wouldn't be a repet.i.tion of the performance in another half-year. Her empty room gave one "les homeseeks."

In order to forget it and to escape the cold, Nan cut short her preparations for the night and got into bed with as little delay as possible. She cuddled comfortably between her smooth sheets and soft blankets and in a moment was soundly asleep.

When she waked the next morning it was with a vague feeling of responsibility, as though she had gone to sleep with a weight of some calamity on her heart. As she dressed she tried to recall it but there was nothing in yesterday's experience to depress her and she ran down to breakfast determined to shake off the haunting impression. But all through the meal it clung to her and she could not get rid of it. To be especially virtuous in Miss Blake's absence and show her that she was "dependable," she took the dish-washing upon herself and got through with it speedily. Then up to her room to set that in order, and then down to the conservatory to attend to the plants.

It was just as this juncture that Delia heard a wild cry of distress ring through the house. She ran upstairs in a fright and found Nan standing at the threshold of the conservatory door gazing in and wringing her hands. The sight that met her eyes was a pitiful one.

There was not one plant among them all that had outlived the night.

The leaves of all were frozen black.

CHAPTER XVIII

"CHESTER NEWCOMB"

"Oh, do you think I could?" demanded Nan, eagerly.

Miss Blake considered a moment. "I don't see any reason why it might not be arranged."

"It's right by the sea and Ruth says they never fuss about clothes down there. Just anything will do."

The governess smiled. "Nevertheless I think you will need a couple of changes. I have sometimes been asked to visit country houses where 'anything would do,' and I've generally found that it all depends on what one understands by 'anything.'"

"I can wear a shirt-waist in the morning and in the afternoon I can wear a--a--another one," announced Nan.

Miss Blake laughed. "You poor child," she said, "I do believe you haven't much beside for the summer."