ook here, Hetty, I don't want you to ask Annie
Forest a lot of questions about me. I can't help having a romping time
now and then at school; and there are two new girls--Polly and Milly
Jenkins; they are so killingly funny; nearly as good as Boris and Kitty
Lorrimer. I always had a little bit of the wild element in me, and I
suppose it must come out somehow. Annie was wild enough when she was my
age, wasn't she, Hester?"

"Annie will be gay and light-hearted to the end of the chapter!"
exclaimed Hester.

"But she was naughty when she was my age, wasn't she?"

"She is not naughty now."

"Well, no more will I be when I am sixteen. Now, good-night, Het. Am I
to sleep in your room?"

"Yes."

"How scrumptious. Look out for a fine waking early in the morning."

Nan hugged Hester in her usual rough-and-ready manner, and danced
upstairs, singing as she went--

"_Old Daddy-long-legs wouldn't say his prayers,
Catch him by his left leg and throw him downstairs._"

This was one of Nan's rhymes which Sir John detested. Her voice was loud
and somewhat piercing. He heard it in the drawing-room, and went
deliberately and shut the door.

"Miss Forest," he said to his young guest, "there are moments when I
feel extremely uneasy with regard to the fate of my youngest daughter."

"About Nan's fate?" exclaimed Annie, raising her arched eyebrows; "why,
she is quite the dearest little thing in the world. I wish you could see
her at school; she is the pet of all the girls at Lavender House."

"That may be," said Sir John, with a slightly sarcastic movement of his
thin lips; "but it does not follow that school pets are home pets. If my
good friend, Mrs. Willis, finds Nan's society so agreeable, I wish she
would arrange to keep her for the holidays."

Annie's young face, so round, so fresh, so charming, was fixed in grave
surprise on her elderly host.

"Don't you love Nan at all?" she asked, wonder in her tone.

Sir John had been giving Miss Forest credit for great tact. Up to this
moment, he had considered her a very pretty, agreeable little girl, who
would be an acquisition in the house. Now he winced; she had trodden
very severely on one of his corns.

"I naturally have a regard for my child," he said, after a pause, "and I
presume that I show it best by having her properly educated and
disciplined in her youth."

"Oh, no, I don't think you do," said Annie. "You must forgive me for
saying frankly what I really t