her chanct Oi hav, though how Oi come boy ut ye'll niver know anny
moar than Oi do mesilf, for Misther Allen was that set agin me he
wuddn't hear a wurrud Oi'd sa'. But Oi have another chanct and ut's
mesilf 'll see till ut, ut lasts me me loife-toime."

"O dear!" complained Ruth to Nan, "I never want to hear the name of
sleigh-ride again so long as I live. Everywhere I go, they say so
significantly: 'We hear you had a very gay time the other night! Well,
well! such things wouldn't have been tolerated when I was young!' and
then they make some cutting remark about Mrs. Cole, and I'm afraid it's
not going to be very pleasant for her after this, for none of our
fathers and mothers want to have anything more to do with her. They
say her example has been so bad. And one can't have a bit of fun
nowadays, for we're all being kept on short rations to pay up for the
other night."

But as the weeks passed the gossip died away and then every one
breathed freer again.

Latterly Nan was filling her part of the household contract with
considerably less ill-will than she had shown at the beginning, but
even now there were occasional lamentations when the day was especially
enticing, and her spirits rose and soared above the pettiness of
bed-making and the degradation of dusting. It took her about twice as
long to get through with her share of the work as it took Miss Blake,
and she could never console herself with the thought that it was
because the governess shirked. Occasionally she let her own tasks go
"with a lick and a promise," as Delia described it, bat when she saw
the thoroughness with which Miss Blake did even the least important
thing she had the grace to be ashamed and to determine on a better
course in the future. But before she really settled down to a stricter
habit of conscientiousness something happened that gave her more of an
impulse than a course of lectures would have done.

The winter had been a long and unusually severe one, but by March it
seemed reasonable to suppose that its backbone was broken. Nan had
preferred the care of the conservatory to the duller and less
interesting work of dish-washing, and Miss Blake, in letting her take
her choice, had only exacted the promise that her charge was not to be
neglected. Nan had, as we know, given her hand upon it, and so the
matter stood. The governess never "nagged" her about her duties; she
took it for granted that the girl would honorably keep her