cottage had not been long enough to have fixed her features in his
mind, when his face suddenly broke into an almost boyish smile.

"Hey, driver--stop! Whoa! Why, my dear child--bless me, this is very
fortunate!" With one foot on the step, he leaned out and clasped her
hand. "Get in, get in, my dear--I was on my way to see you. And I
nearly missed you, eh?" Nancy clambered up beside him, and the driver,
not receiving any orders to the contrary, clucked to his steed, which
continued on its interrupted way.

"Were you really going to visit us, Uncle?" asked Nancy. "It's a pity
that Alma isn't here. She went in to the city--and it was just luck
that I didn't go, too." She smiled to herself, wondering if, after
all, Providence had had some hand in the events of the morning which
had kept her where she was.

"Luck? Well, I should say so. I'd have been badly disappointed if my
surprise had fallen through," chuckled Uncle Thomas, who was evidently
in the best of spirits. "Well, well--you're as ruddy as a ripe
pomegranate, my dear."

"I've just walked four miles," said Nancy.

"Walked? By yourself? Now, that's a taste you've inherited from me.
Fond of walking, aren't you? Now, tell me how you are getting
along--at school, I mean. Like it, eh?" He looked at her keenly, a
twinkle hiding just under the surface of his gray eyes.

"Yes, I like it. I'm working awfully hard--I have to, or I wouldn't
get anywhere, because it would be awfully easy to loaf at Miss
Leland's," laughed Nancy; she had a feeling that he was waiting to get
her opinion of the school, and she was afraid of sounding priggish, or
as if she were trying to impress him with an idea of her industry. So
she chatted away about the girls, telling him about Charlotte
particularly, describing the teachers, giving him an account of the
routine, and so on, to all of which he listened as intently as if he
were her father.

"So you're swimming along. Good. And how is my other niece? Is she
working very hard? Has she made lots of friends, eh?" Again Nancy
felt that he was pumping her, but she told him casually about Alma,
taking care to say nothing that might sound as if she said it for
effect, and he listened, nodding his head, and smiling.

"Well, now--even if we can't have Alma with us, what do you say to
giving up a holiday to an old gentleman? Is that too much to ask? The
whim took me to run over here to-day and kidnap my two nieces; but