of Miss Blake's admirable photographs of
the present.

"It seems to me you have done more traveling than any one I ever knew!"
exclaimed the girl for the hundredth time one day.

"It has been all I had to do," rejoined the governess wistfully. "For
many, many years I have had nothing else. But now all that is changed,
and--as it is half-past one, and I hear Delia coming up to announce
luncheon, I'll dismiss my class, and declare school over for to-day."

"That is always the way," mused Nan, "whenever I refer to her and try
to start her telling about herself she veers off and talks of something
else. Queer about her traveling so much, though. I wonder how she
came to do it--when she's so poor. She never said straight out she was
some one's companion, and I don't think a governess would be taken all
over the globe like that."

While the ice lasted Nan had many a good hour upon her skates. Miss
Blake too donned hers, and at these times the tables were turned and
Nan became the patient teacher, the governess the obedient pupil.

"My ankles are weak," pleaded the pupil in apology for persistent
failure.

"Exercise 'em and they'll grow strong!" declared the intrepid
instructor in peremptory tones.

"It's no use, I can't reverse, Nan!"

"Pooh! 'Never say can't till you've proved that the task is
impossible,'" quoted Nan, with a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"You're real mean, so there!" responded Miss Blake in return with such
a good imitation of her own querulous tone that the girl burst into a
shout of laughter, and the two started off again to make another,
perhaps futile attempt, at the difficult feat, until, by the latter
part of the winter, Miss Blake acquitted herself so creditably that her
teacher regarded her with pardonable pride, and declared,

"There, now! You ought to be 'all primmed up with majestick pride.'
You skate as well as anybody now, and you've got rid of every particle
of nervousness."

There were many things beside skating that the governess set herself to
accomplish during these months, and Mrs. Newton often took her to task
for working so hard.

"You are beginning to look completely fagged. Do let the house go.
What do you fret over it for? If Nan wants alterations, why not let
Mr. Turner engage competent people to do the work? You have
responsibility enough without planning and overseeing all these
improvements."

But Miss Blake only shook her obstinate little head and c