not expect the wild and heedless girl to carry off any
special prizes; but her abilities were quite up to the average, and she
always hoped to rouse sufficient ambition in her to enable her to acquire
a good and sound education. Mrs. Willis knew how necessary this was for
poor Annie's future, and, after giving the doctor an assurance that Nan's
whims and pleasures should be attended to for the next two or three days,
she determined at the end of that time to assert her own authority with
the child, and to insist on Annie working hard at her lessons, and
returning to her usual school-room life.

On the morning of the third day Mrs. Willis made inquiries, heard that
Nan had spent an excellent night, eaten a hearty breakfast, and was
altogether looking blooming. When the girls assembled in the school-room
for their lessons, Annie brought her little charge down to the large
play-room, where they established themselves cozily, and Annie began to
instruct little Nan in the mysteries of

"Tic, tac, too,
The little horse has lost his shoe."

Nan was entering into the spirit of the game, was imagining herself a
little horse, and was holding out her small foot to be shod, when Mrs.
Willis entered the room.

"Come with me, Nan," she said; "I have got something to show you."

Nan got up instantly, held out one hand to Mrs. Willis and the other to
Annie, and said, in her confident baby tones:

"Me tum; Annie tumming too."

Mrs. Willis said nothing, but holding the little hand, and accompanied by
Annie, she went out of the play-room, across the stone hall, and through
the baize doors until she reached her own delightful private
sitting-room.

There were heaps of pretty things about, and Nan gazed round her with the
appreciative glance of a pleased connoisseur.

"Pitty 'oom," she said approvingly. "Nan likes this 'oom. Me'll stay
here, and so will Annie."

Here she uttered a sudden cry of rapture--on the floor, with its leaves
temptingly open, lay a gaily-painted picture-book, and curled up in a
soft fluffy ball by its side was a white Persian kitten asleep.

Mrs. Willis whispered something to Annie, who ran out of the room, and
Nan knelt down in a perfect rapture of worship by the kitten's side.

"Pitty tibby pussy!" she exclaimed several times, and she rubbed it so
persistently the wrong way that the kitten shivered and stood up, arched
its back very high, yawned, turned round three