or with her chin in her palms and her elbows on her
knees, looking so much like a little girl that for a second Nan had a
wild impulse to plump down beside her and inquire, by way of opening
the acquaintance--

"Say, does your hair curl like that naturally--or does your mother put
it up at night?" or something equally introductory and to the point.
But of course she did no such thing, and when Delia reappeared she
found them regarding the fire in perfect silence.

At the sound of her step Miss Blake lifted her head and gave Nan a
bewildering smile.

"How stupid I have been! Do forgive me!" she said. "We have been
having what the Germans call 'an English conversation,' haven't we? I
was thinking so hard I quite forgot you--and myself. Ah, what a pretty
supper! But I put you to so much trouble," and she turned on Delia two
very grateful eyes, while she jumped to her feet with the lightest
possible ease.

Delia beamed down upon her beatifically and gave an extra touch to the
dainty tray. Nan from her chair scowled darkly upon the whole
performance. Delia had deserted her cause; had gone over bodily to the
enemy--that was plain. But she needn't flaunt her defection in Nan's
very face. Why, it was positively disgraceful the way Delia fetched
and carried for this person already, and looked, all the while, as if
she could hardly keep from dancing for very joy at the privilege.
Well, this governess needn't think that Nan was the kind to be won over
by a few smiles and some flickering dimples. When Nan said a thing she
meant it and she stuck to it, too. She wasn't a turn-coat like some
folks she knew.

"'Alas, alas! my dear old home--! To think that anybody who isn't
wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear old home!
Oh, father, her eyes are like--' Good gracious! all that description
part would have to be changed!" Nan pulled herself together with a
visible jerk. How could she speak of "needly eyes" when those of the
governess were so deep and soft and gray that they made you feel
like--no, they didn't either; but they weren't needly all the same.
No! That whole description part would have to be changed. Bother!
Well, if it came to that she guessed she could do it! "Her hated form
haunts me in my sleep, and I dream of her all night as I see her in the
daytime--little and dear, with her hair all shimmery and soft and her
eyes kind of kissing you softly all the time, and--" Goodness! tha