e supposed it must be true. What, then, if she were to
turn about and be her old self again?

What if Miss Blake were to give the house its old aspect again? Ugh!
It was disheartening even to think of such a thing. But granting that
she were to let things go back, she couldn't undo some of the
improvements she had made? So it seemed reasonable to Nan that even if
she let herself be as she had been for awhile, just to rest from the
constant trying to be good, for a day or so, the really important
changes must still remain; like the dumbwaiter and the wall paper and
the frescoes and the woodwork. And, pshaw! Just going to this
sleigh-ride wasn't going to prove that she was backsliding, anyway!
Miss Blake was too particular--making an awful fuss over nothing. Mrs.
Cole was all right enough. Lots of nice people knew her, and the girls
always liked to have her around, she was so gay and jolly. And now
that she was married, it was fun to have her chaperone them, for she
never interfered, nor was wet-blankety, like mothers and people, no
matter what was going on. In fact, she often urged them on and
suggested things the girls themselves would never have thought of, so
that wherever she was the fun promised to run high. It was too bad of
Miss Blake to have put the case as she had. It simply meant that if
Nan went she deliberately disobeyed her wish and defied her authority.

For the first time the girl seemed to get a glimpse of the tactful,
tender way in which she had been guided. She saw that this was the
first instance in which she had been put under definite restraint.
Always before Miss Blake had left her seemingly to decide for herself,
and she had never been aware of the influence that led her in the right
direction.

But this was different. This was discipline, and she rose against it
instantly.

If she did not go on the sleigh-ride she would only be obeying Miss
Blake's injunction. There was no credit or virtue in that. There
might be some satisfaction in denying one's self a pleasure if one felt
one were independent, and that what one did was self-abnegating and
laudable. But if one acted under compulsion--! Pooh! Nan guessed
Miss Blake thought she was a mere child to be ordered about like that.

And yet, with all this, there was a strange unfamiliar tugging at her
heart to confess herself willing to obey. She actually had to make an
effort to keep from doing so. She scarcely knew how it happ