w from her sad and angry eyes, but
she made no trouble, and seemed dull and indifferent. Late in the
evening Dr. Leslie carried her home with him through the first heavy
snow-storm of the year, and between the excitement of being covered
from the fast-falling flakes, and so making a journey in the dark, and
of keeping hold of the basket which contained the enraged kitten, the
grief at leaving home was not dwelt upon.

When she had been unwound from one of the doctor's great cloaks, and
her eyes had grown used to the bright light in the dining-room, and
Marilla had said that supper had been waiting half an hour, and she
did not know how she should get along with a black cat, and then
bustled about talking much faster than usual, because the sight of the
lonely child had made her ready to cry, Nan began to feel comforted.
It seemed a great while ago that she had cried at her grandmother's
funeral. If this were the future it was certainly very welcome and
already very dear, and the time of distress was like a night of bad
dreams between two pleasant days.

It will easily be understood that no great change was made in Dr.
Leslie's house. The doctor himself and Marilla were both well settled
in their habits, and while they cordially made room for the little
girl who was to be the third member of the household, her coming made
little difference to either of her elders. There was a great deal of
illness that winter, and the doctor was more than commonly busy; Nan
was sent to school, and discovered the delight of reading one stormy
day when her guardian had given her leave to stay at home, and she had
found his own old copy of Robinson Crusoe looking most friendly and
inviting in a corner of one of the study shelves. As for school, she
had never liked it, and the village school gave her far greater misery
than the weather-beaten building at the cross-roads ever had done. She
had known many of the village children by sight, from seeing them in
church, but she did not number many friends among them, even after the
winter was nearly gone and the days began to grow brighter and less
cold, and the out-of-door games were a source of great merriment in
the playground. Nan's ideas of life were quite unlike those held by
these new acquaintances, and she could not gain the least interest in
most of the other children, though she grew fond of one boy who was a
famous rover and fisherman, and after one of the elder girls had read
a com