Julie M. Lippmann

“ She repeated the incident to Miss Blake, concluding with:
"I don't care what they think!"
"John was right," declared Miss Blake, "and you did what was brave and just. But don't give up trying to win Mary's and Grace's good opinion, Nan. I want you to be respected and loved, and you can be, if you will only be as true to yourself as you are to your friends. You were not satisfied to let Lu and Ruth rest under a false accusation this morning. Neither should you be satisfied to let yourself. Prove to Mary and Grace that you are neither bold nor brazen. ”

“ No one could conceive how hard it was for the girl not to desert her clinging companion. She knew in her heart that Louie would never master the knack unless she were made to rely upon herself. As long as she could depend on Nan's support she would not make any effort to use her own energy, nor would she exert her will-power to force herself to strike out alone. The ice was in perfect condition to-day, but it would not long remain so with such a crowd cutting it to pieces, and the sun already thawing the powdered snow and threatening to do more damage to-morrow. ”

“ Some day you'll know her for what she is, and then you'll never strive against her any more and you'll love her as many another has done before you."
The girl gazed straight into the woman's eyes. "I love her now, Delia," she said. "I've loved her from the first minute—only I didn't know it some of the time and the rest I was a horrid—little—beast, so there!"
Oh, the happy days that Nan spent in that quiet room above stairs. How she grew to love it! The sunshine coming through the curtains and making great patches of mellow light upon the floor seemed more bright here than anywhere else. ”

“ You never cry, Nan. You're always so brave, and never give way. You'll have a headache if you don't stop. Dry your tears, and to-morrow it'll be all right."
So, little by little, she soothed the girl, and by and by Nan ate her dinner, and then, when it was later, she went to bed. But when everything was hushed and still a dark figure crept noiselessly down stairs and on into the outer darkness. ”

“ Nan, though standing in awkward silence, as stiff and as straight as a soldier on parade, was ready to be influenced by whatever course her caller chose to pursue; a kind word spoken at the start would melt her at once, where a harsh one would raise in her every sort of sullen hostility and obstinate resistance. She was, as Delia often said to herself, "as hard to manage as a kicking colt." Sometimes she was wonderfully docile, but her moods were variable, and oftenest she was headstrong and wilful, with a fierce repugnance to curb, or what she considered unwarrantable interference. ”

“ Miss Blake would rejoin. "It simply spoils my ride for me, Nan, to see you so reckless. Such head-long wheeling has nothing to recommend it. It is neither expert nor admirable. When you fling along so blindly you are merely doing a foolish, heedless thing and running serious risks. I am sure you will come to grief some day."
"Don't you worry! I am as much at home in my saddle as I would be in a rocking-chair. See me ride without touching the handle-bars!" ”

“ It was very romantic and Miss Webster wore a dreamy, rapt expression nowadays that sent Nan and Ruth off into fits of laughter when they were out of the range of her eyes and ears.
"What a pity it is he can't be here to see?" gasped Ruth.
"Oh, he sees enough, never you fear," Nan assured her. "When one casts sheep's eyes like that they hit even in the dark! Poor thing! She is such a goose. ”

“ 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 multitude of things—from a gold watch to a clucking hen. ”

“ But I feel that at least you and John and Mary have seen things as they are, and will profit by your experience. You remember the talk we had at Mrs. Newton's before the holidays? She said 'Experience is an expensive school, and only fools can afford to go to it,' or something like that; you are no fool, Nan. I think you will see more and more plainly, as time goes on, that there are some things that we cannot afford to do. We cannot afford to buy a momentary pleasure at the price of a lifetime of regret, and we cannot afford to spend even one day of our life in unscrupulous company. ”

“ As soon as she saw that Mary had fallen soundly asleep Nan rose and slipped noiselessly down stairs. She had no trouble in finding the supper-room, for she had only to follow the echoing sounds to be led directly to the door. She stood a moment on the threshold before she laid her hand upon the knob. It seemed to her she had never heard such a hub-bub, but as she listened she seemed to hear, over and above it all, Miss Blake's soft voice saying quietly:
"If you and the other girls have no more careful a chaperone than Mrs. Cole, I am afraid your party will prove a rather uproarious one." ”

“ Ruth laughed ruefully, but broke in, with sudden inspiration: "O dear! You're as proud as a peacock, Nan Cutler. Louie will be dreadfully disappointed, for she told me to tell you she counted on you to take her out. She's never skated much, you know, and she's wobbly on her ankles. She's afraid of the teachers, and she doesn't like to ask the boys, because they hate to have a girl hanging on to them, and the rest of us have as much as we can do to attend to our own affairs." ”

“ 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. ”

“ If Miss Blake only hadn't been so mean, I might have been spared all this fret and bother and been just as jolly as any of them. But how can a person have a good time when they know there's some one at home pulling a long face and making one feel as if one were breaking all the laws. It's just too bad, that's what it is."
But Miss Blake neither "pulled a long face" nor by any other means tried to impress Nan with a sense of her disapproval. ”

“ Miss Blake bit her lip. "One can't judge, Nan," she said. "If your mother shared her home with this girl and she had money and your mother had not, I think it was only right that they should share the money too. No, I do not think it was generous."
Nan tossed her head. "Well, I think it was and so does Delia," she retorted hotly.
"It is easy enough to give when one has plenty," pursued the governess, almost sternly. "But when one has little and one gives that—well, then it is hard and then perhaps one may be what the world calls generous, though I should call it merely grateful." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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 ”

“ Miss Blake gently put her aside, saying calmly,
"Why, nothing is the matter, Nan. Nothing at all, my dear. I am strong and well now, you know. Quite strong and well. You must not make Mr. Turner think I am ill, else he will go away again, and I shall not know what he has to say to me. I am quite able to hear—whatever it is. So go away, dear."
The girl obeyed, and the next moment the door had closed behind her, and only the sound of her voice from without, singing in happy reassurance, broke the stillness of the room where the lawyer and the governess stood facing each other silently. ”

“ If the cold weather lasts we'll have elegant sleighing, with all this snow, and I want to hire a sleigh, just any common old thing will do, and fill it with straw, and all of us girls and boys go off on a screamingly fine sleigh-ride. If it clears we'll have a full moon, and I think it would just be the jolliest thing in the world. Now please say Nan can go. She'll love to I know, and she always makes things snap so," pleaded the girl, fixing her eyes on Miss Blake's face with a peculiar intensity of expression. ”

“ Andrews declared one day, "you ought to have been a boy. You'd make a capital fellow."
"I know it," admitted Nan, frankly. "I love boys' sports and pranks, and to think that all my life I've just got to 'sit on a cushion and sew up a seam.' It's perfectly awful."
"Fancy!" exclaimed Miss Webster, a fellow-guest, and a young lady whom, by the way, Nan regarded with a good deal of disdain, because she seemed what John Gardiner called "girly-girly," and was flirtatious. "Fancy! Why, I wouldn't be a man for anything in the world! Just think what hideous clothes they wear." ”

“ Nan was more than ever inclined to be sulky. Her loyalty was touched. Not alone did Miss Blake fail to appreciate her heroine, but she showed quite plainly that she did not want to hear about her. "All the time I was talking she fidgeted around and looked too unhappy for anything. I guess she needn't think she's the only one in the world that can make people love her. I don't think it's very nice to be jealous of a person you never saw. Pooh! I like what she said about trying to be good. I guess Delia knows," said Nan. ”

“ There ain't no one in this world like her. She is the best, the generousest, the most self-sacrificin' soul on earth—that she is, and I've known her ever since she was a child. If any one was to ask me the name of the woman I've most call to honor an' love, I'd say 'twas Isabel Blake Severance an' never stop a minute to think it over."
And both Nan and Delia had long ago decided that while other women might be more beautiful, no one could have softer, sunnier hair than Aunt Isabel, nor truer, tenderer eyes, nor a prettier nose nor a sweeter mouth. ”

“ Don't say that," groaned Nan, "for I probably shall grow lots more as it is. You see I'm not quite sixteen yet. Do people ever get their growth before they are sixteen, Mrs. Andrews?"
"Oh, sometimes," replied the lady kindly. "I scarcely think you will grow any more, my dear. But I wouldn't worry about it in any case if I were you."
"But I don't want to tower over everybody," wailed the girl. "Just think, I'm head and shoulders above Miss Blake now!"
"But Miss Blake is a 'pocket Venus!' Just as high as one's heart," said Carl Andrews. ”

“ 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 ”

“ That's what's made us like you so. A fellow hasn't had to be on the continual jump for fear your hat wasn't on straight or your hair was coming down. You're as plucky as a boy, and it's like having another jolly, good fellow about when you're around. You're not going back on all that? You aren't going to turn girly-girly? You aren't going to be a Nancy, are you?"
She lifted her head with a jerk. "No; I'm going to stay plain Nan," she retorted. "But I can't go out with you this morning, John—at least not now. ”

“ Nan gazed at it in speechless admiration. It had been the dream of her life to own such a machine, but she had pleaded for one in vain. Mr. Turner had explained to her that what money he held in trust for her was no more than served to pay for her running expenses.
"You know your father is not a rich man," he had said, "and lately he has met with losses. He wishes you to be brought up under home influences rather than at a boarding-school among strangers. He desires you to be well educated, and naturally all this costs. ”

“ Mrs. Cole is scarcely more than a girl herself, and—I say this to you, Nan, simply because I must—she has never been, to my idea, a lady-like young woman. She has always been flippant and frivolous and boisterous; anything but a good companion for a number of impulsive, impressionable girls like yourself."
"Oh, pshaw!" interrupted Nan, impatiently. "There's nothing against her at all. She's lots of fun, and a body'd be a great goose that tried to suit all the old frumps in town. She said so herself, and she's married and she knows."
A ghost of a smile flitted across Miss Blake's face. ”

“ If we ride up we have still a few minutes to spare, but if we walk it would be wise to start at once."
"O let's walk," begged Nan. "It's such fun; there's so much going on. And now my foot is well, I just want to trot all the time."
Though Miss Blake was a good walker and took a great deal of exercise, she always preferred to ride when she was with Nan, for the girl forged ahead at such a rate and darted in among the maze of trucks and cars and carriages so recklessly that there was actual danger as well as discomfort in trying to keep abreast with her. ”

“ Cole means to carry things with a high hand to-night. Hope we won't come to grief. Sometimes the motto is 'everything goes,' and then it isn't so easy to hold back and stand for the things you ought to. I depend on you, Nan, to keep a level head, for some of us'll have to act as ballast or we'll all go under."
Nan's face glowed with gratification. "All right, John," she responded staunchly, and then, Mrs. Cole giving the signal, in an instant the roomful seemed to fling itself helter-skelter to the hall-door, fastening boas and mufflers as it went, all eager and breathless to be off. ”

“ So young and to die alone among strangers."
Miss Blake stretched out her hands supplicatingly.
"Don't," she pleaded.
"Shall I tell Nan?" Mr. Turner asked after a moment. "Perhaps it would be better if I should. You have undergone enough."
"No, no!" she cried. "No one must tell her but myself. But first I must talk to you about—about—you know when I came here I had reasons for wishing her not to know who I was. Now I will tell her. There is no more need to withhold anything. Delia always knew—from the first—but she never told Nan and she never would have told. ”

“ 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 passion 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. ”

“ She might run and leave the youngster behind. But then Ruth would cry, and Nan could not bear to inflict pain on a little child. She might take her up in her arms and carry her bodily back to her own door. Well, and what then? Why, simply, she would get the credit of abusing the little girl. There seemed no way out of it. She stalked on grimly, and when she came to Reid's lot she promptly and dexterously climbed its fence and continued her way in silence. But the fence proved an insurmountable obstacle to Ruth. ”

“ Nan blinked. She herself believed in being satisfied with whatever came easiest, unless it was in the way of some sport, where she liked to excel.
"How jolly it must be to travel about—all over the world," said she, musingly. "When I'm grown up I guess I'll be a governess, or a companion, or something, just as you are, and get a place with some awfully nice people who will take me everywhere. ”

“ After a time the commotion in the next room ceased, and all was quiet as the grave. "She's getting on her hat now," gasped Nan. "She'll go away and think I'm a heathen and all sorts of horrid things. And she hasn't got any friends or folks of her own, and no house to go to but this. And I s'pose she's awfully poor, because she wouldn't be a governess if she wasn't, and oh, dear! I don't want to have any one be a beggar, and turned out of the only roof they've got over their heads on my account. That's what makes me feel so bad, Delia. That's the only thing. ”