," she hastened to declare, "I am sure your mother would not let you
go to anything that she knew to be in any respect not altogether as it
should be."

There was just the shade of an emphasis on the word knew--just the
merest breath of a pause before it. Miss Blake gazed frankly and
fearlessly into the girl's eyes as she spoke, and Ruth's lids dropped
suddenly as if she had been trying to look at the sun and it had
blinded her.

There was a pause and in it they could distinctly hear Nan's feet going
to and fro on the floor above their heads, and her sharp young voice
shouting the chorus of some tuneless popular air, in her own perfectly
cheerful, earless fashion.

"Oh, Miss Blake, please!" quavered Ruth.

If she had known the governess as well as Nan did she would have known
that it was worse than useless to "tease." As it was, she was aware of
some force here that did not appear in her own easy-going mother, and
unconsciously she bowed to it--but even as she did so she gave a last
wail of entreaty from pure force of habit.

"Please, Miss Blake!"

"No, Ruth. I can't consent to Nan's joining you. If she goes, it will
be in direct defiance of my authority and against my wish and approval.
But when she hears what I have to say I do not think she will go."

"Don't think who will go?" demanded an eager voice, as Nan came pelting
in at the door, having flung down stairs in such a whirl that they had
scarcely realized she had started before she was here.

"Heyo, Ruth! When did you come? You're a dear girl to venture out a
day like this! Who'll go where, 'you don't think,' Miss Blake?"

Ruth rose and began dragging on her gloves. "Hello," she said,
blankly, in return for the other's greeting.

"Who'll go? Who'll go?" insisted Nan, tapping the floor with her foot
to emphasize her impatience.

Ruth looked at Miss Blake a little sullenly, and said nothing. Miss
Blake looked at Nan.

"You," she returned simply. "I was just saying to Ruth that I am sure
you would not go anywhere against my plainly expressed wish."

The girl threw back her head with an unrestrained laugh.

"Oh, now, you're bragging!" she cried breezily. "Don't count too much
on me. I'm a queer creature. I don't know what I'd do if I were hard
put!"

Ruth glanced at Miss Blake again as she buttoned her coat. The
governess' face was quite placid, but there was an expression in her
eyes that was quite new to the girl and that she did n