be stern as he says he cannot
have such a piece of mischief happen again, he wonders how the girl
knew that he had dreaded for once in his life the drive in the dark,
and had felt a little less strong than usual.

Marilla still reigns in noble state. She has some time ago accepted a
colleague after a preliminary show of resentment, and Nan has little
by little infused a different spirit into the housekeeping; and when
her friends come to pay visits in the vacations they find the old home
a very charming place, and fall quite in love with both the doctor and
Mrs. Graham before they go away. Marilla always kept the large east
parlor for a sacred shrine of society, to be visited chiefly by
herself as guardian priestess; but Nan has made it a pleasanter room
than anybody ever imagined possible, and uses it with a freedom which
appears to the old housekeeper to lack consideration and respect. Nan
makes the most of her vacations, while the neighbors are all glad to
see her come back, and some of them are much amused because in summer
she still clings to her childish impatience at wearing any head
covering, and no matter how much Marilla admires the hat which is
decorously worn to church every Sunday morning, it is hardly seen
again, except by chance, during the week, and the brown hair is sure
to be faded a little before the summer sunshine is past. Nan goes
about visiting when she feels inclined, and seems surprisingly
unchanged as she seats herself in one of the smoke-browned Dyer
kitchens, and listens eagerly to whatever information is offered, or
answers cordially all sorts of questions, whether they concern her own
experiences or the world's in general. She has never yet seen her
father's sister, though she still thinks of her, and sometimes with a
strange longing for an evidence of kind feeling and kinship which has
never been shown. This has been chief among the vague sorrows of her
girlhood. Yet once when her guardian had asked if she wished to make
some attempt at intercourse or conciliation, he had been answered,
with a scorn and decision worthy of grandmother Thacher herself, that
it was for Miss Prince to make advances if she ever wished for either
the respect or affection of her niece. But the young girl has clung
with touching affection to the memory and association of her
childhood, and again and again sought in every season of the year the
old playgrounds and familiar corners of the farm, which she has grown