ail 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.

They ate their luncheon together in the library, and after they had
finished Miss Blake excused herself and went upstairs to prepare to go
out.

"After being in the house all the morning one needs a change," she
said, "and it would be a sin to spend all of this glorious day indoors."

Nan sighed. How she longed to get away herself. But of course that
was impossible, with this old troublesome ankle bothering her. If she
could not step across the room, how could she hope to get into the
street? O dear! When would it be well?

Miss Blake was tripping about upstairs and Nan could hear her singing
as she went. Delia was up there, too. When Delia walked the
chandelier shook.

"She follows Miss Blake about so, it's perfectly disgusting," thought
the girl resentfully. "Now, I wonder what she wants in my room. I
don't thank either of them for going poking about my things when I'm
not there, so now! Well, I'm glad she's coming down, at any rate."

The governess appeared in the library a moment later, but Nan could
scarcely see her face, she was so overladen with wraps and rugs. She
turned the whole assortment into a chair, and before the girl could ask
a question, she found herself being bundled up and made ready for the
street.

"What are you doing?" she gasped out at length. "You know I can't
walk."

"Nobody asked you, sir!" quoted the governess, gayly.

"Then what are you putting on my things for?"

"Ready, Delia?" sang out Miss Blake, cheerfully.

Nan heard the front door open. Then heavy steps came clumping along
the hall, and in another moment she was being borne down the outer
steps and set comfortably in a carriage by the good old Irish coachman,
Mike, from the livery stable round the corner.

"Are you comfortable?" asked Miss Blake, with her foot on the step.
"Have you everything you need?"

Nan nodded, and the governess, taking her place beside her, motioned to
Michael, who climbed to his seat on the box, and off they drove.

"There is Delia at the window! Let'