But presently she found herself telling her father's friend the story
of yesterday's disaster, quite simply and with entire willingness.

"So," Mr. Turner said at the conclusion, "I thought that the good lady
must have made a mistake. I felt pretty sure your father's daughter
would never be guilty of cowardice nor of deliberately planning to
destroy the peace of any one. I knew you could not be the girl Mrs.
Newton described. She seemed to think you were--why, my dear, she gave
me to understand that you were quite wild and lawless; that you were a
bad influence in the neighborhood, and that you were so with full
consciousness of what you were doing. We must explain to Mrs. Newton!
We must explain!"

"I don't lie!" declared Nan. "And I'm not a coward, and I don't try to
make her mad or hurt her children, but I do climb trees and I do race
and do figures on roller-skates, and I do do the rest of the things she
says I do and that she doesn't like."

"And your school?" ventured the lawyer.

"I don't go any more," announced Nan. "I had a fight with one of the
teachers, and so I left."

Mr. Turner gazed suddenly upon the floor.

"And this 'fight' with the teacher? Do you remember the cause of the
disturbance?" he asked, looking up after a moment.

"She struck me with her ruler. I had a rubber baby doll, it was the
weeniest thing you ever saw, and she wore false puffs, Miss Fowler did,
and one day, when I was at the blackboard and she was looking the other
way, I just dropped the baby doll into one of the puffs that the
hair-pin had come out of, and that was standing up on end, and it
looked so funny on her head, the puff with the baby doll standing in
it, that all the girls laughed, and then she asked me what I had done,
and I told her, and she struck me. I wouldn't have said anything if
she had just punished me. I knew it was wrong to pop that doll on her
head, but I just couldn't help it--it looked too funny. But when she
struck me! Well, I won't be struck by any one--and so I left."

The lawyer meditated in silence for a moment. Then he said:

"Well, my dear, I think I understand the condition of things here.
Without doubt it is high time something were done. Your father, when
he went away, gave me full authority to make such arrangements for you
as I might feel were necessary, but until now I have rather avoided
taking upon myself any responsibility. Possibly I have neglected my
duty toward you.