, but Delia had a way of ranging
it against the walls in a manner that made it seem stiff and
uncompromising. When a piece needed repairing, and with Nan about,
many a piece needed repairing often, it was stowed out of sight in the
trunk-room, or the cellar, and the carpets, which had been rich and
fashionable in their day, were allowed to lie now long after they had
become threadbare and faded. Delia kept the handsome paintings veiled
in tarlatan winter and summer, and she never removed the slip-covers
from the parlor sofas and chairs, whatever the season might be. Nan
did not care, because she knew nothing different, and there was no
loving, artful hand to make the best of the things and turn the house
into a home.

Mrs. Newton had shivered as she entered the place; it seemed dark and
cold and forbidding to her, and she felt the mother-want at every turn,
but this had not made her any more lenient with Nan. Perhaps the
governess would make no allowances either. Delia made up her mind that
if things really came to the pass where Nan was being abused, she in
person would "just step in and say her say, if it lost her her place."
She often talked of things losing her her place when the fact was that
she herself was the place: if it had not been for her the house must
have been closed, and Nan sent to boarding-school. Mr. Cutler would
never have trusted the care of his girl to a strange servant.

"Yes, Ma'am," Delia said to herself, as she pushed the governess' bed
flat up against the wall. "Yes, Ma'am! if I see her going for to abuse
Nan, I'll set to and give her a piece of my mind such as she ain't
likely to have got in one while, I tell you that," and she gave the
bureau a vicious tweak and pulled down the shade with a resentful jerk.

When Nan saw the room she was disgusted.

"Why, Delia Connor! you haven't done a single thing I told you to," she
cried out angrily.

"I've swept and dusted it and that's all there was to do," retorted
Delia.

"It looks perfectly lovely," resumed Nan, stamping her foot. "Do you
s'pose I want her to think we're glad to have her, and that we've
prepared for her? Well, I guess not! If she once gets into as good a
room as this she'll never go--she'll just hang on and on, and nothing
in the world will make her budge."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Delia with irritation.

Nan looked at her scornfully for a moment. "Do? Why, what I told you
to do! Make the room look