the book, darling, and go and sit on the floor, and look at your
nice-colored pictures."

Nan, still holding a chubby hand between the leaves of the album, gave
Mrs. Willis a full defiant glance, and said:

"Me won't."

"Come, Nan," said the head-mistress.

"Me want Annie," said Nan, still kneeling by the album, and, bending her
head over the photographs, she turned the page and burst into a peal of
laughter.

"Pitty bow vow," she said, pointing to a photograph of a retriever; "oh,
pitty bow woo, Nan loves 'oo."

Mrs. Willis stooped down and lifted the little girl into her arms.

"Nan, dear," she said, "it is naughty to disobey. Sit down by your
picture-book, and be a good girl."

"Me won't," said Nan again, and here she raised her small dimpled hand
and gave Mrs. Willis a smart slap on her cheek.

"Naughty lady, me don't like 'oo; go 'way. Nan want Annie--Nan do want
Annie. Me don't love 'oo, naughty lady; go 'way."

Mrs. Willis took Nan on her knee. She felt that the little will must be
bent to hers, but the task was no easy one. The child scarcely knew her,
she was still weak and excitable, and she presently burst into storms of
tears, and sobbed and sobbed as though her little heart would break, her
one cry being for "Annie, Annie, Annie." When Annie did join her in the
play hour, the little cheeks were flushed, the white brow ached, and the
child's small hands were hot and feverish. Mrs. Willis felt terribly
puzzled.

CHAPTER XXVI.

UNDER THE LAUREL BUSH.

Mrs. Willis owned to herself that she was non-plussed; it was quite
impossible to allow Annie to neglect her studies, and yet little Nan's
health was still too precarious to allow her to run the risk of having
the child constantly fretted.

Suddenly a welcome idea occurred to her; she would write at once to Nan's
old nurse, and see if she could come to Lavender House for the remainder
of the present term. Mrs. Willis dispatched her letter that very day, and
by the following evening the nurse was once more in possession of her
much-loved little charge. The habits of her babyhood were too strong for
Nan; she returned to them gladly enough, and though in her heart of
hearts she was still intensely loyal to Annie, she no longer fretted when
she was not with her.

Annie resumed her ordinary work, and though Hester was very cold to her,
several of the other girls in the school frankly confided to their
favorite how much they had missed her,