she's got a mind of her own--I can see that--and
you won't be like to get her to change it. But she'll tell you
good-bye before she leaves, she's too much of a lady not to, no matter
how she feels, and then you can say your say, and I promise you
faithful I'll back you up."

Nan saw the wisdom of Delia's counsel, and tried to content herself to
wait. But the suspense of every minute was awful, and she felt herself
growing frenzied under the strain. 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. If she will go on her own
account I'll--I'll be glad, but--oh, she mustn't go this way!"

Delia turned away her face to hide a smile.

"There's nothing to do but wait," she insisted. "If I go in there and
tell her, and she hasn't heard, why it would only give you away; don't
you see?"

Nan let herself down in her rocking-chair with a dismal drop. "O
dear!" she cried, "I never saw anything like it! The way things go
wrong in this house! It's just perfectly horrid! I wish I was with my
father, I do so! I guess it's nicer in India than it is here, anyway;
and I'm sick and tired of living cooped up in this old stuffy place.
So there!"

Delia dusted some imaginary dust off the table with the corner of her
apron, and went down stairs to finish up her work.

In the street below the huckster was yelling "Chestnuts! Fresh-roasted
chestnuts!" The little charcoal oven in his push-cart sent out a
shrill, continuous whistle, and Nan had an impulse to throw something
at him. What business had he to come here and make such a racket that
she couldn't hear what was going on in the next room. He passed slowly
down the street, his call and the whistle of his oven growing fainter
and fainter, and finally fading quite away as he disappeared in the
distance. Nan pricked up her ears. Surely the sounds she heard were
those of moving feet in the next room. Back and forth they went, now
nearer, that was to the closet,