ficate as Bertha Pike did, and go to work. So you mustn't think any
more about my going to that beautiful school with you."

"Stop! I won't listen to you another moment, Nan Sherwood!" cried Bess,
and sticking her fingers in her ears, she ran angrily away and up the
walk to the front door.

Nan walked briskly away toward Amity Street. She did not turn back to
wave her hand as usual at the top of the hill.

Chapter II. THE COTTAGE ON AMITY STREET

The little shingled cottage stood back from the street, in a deeper yard
than most of its neighbors. It was built the year Nan was born, so the
roses, the honeysuckle, and the clematis had become of stalwart growth
and quite shaded the front and side porches.

The front steps had begun to sag a little; but Mr. Sherwood had blocked
them up. The front fence had got out of alignment, and the same able
mechanic had righted it and set the necessary new posts.

The trim of the little cottage on Amity Street had been painted twice
within Nan's remembrance; each time her father had done the work in his
spare time.

Now, with snow on the ground and frozen turf peeping out from under
the half-melted and yellowed drifts, the Sherwood cottage was not so
attractive as in summer. Yet it was a cozy looking house with the early
lamplight shining through the kitchen window and across the porch as Nan
approached, swinging her schoolbooks.

Papa Sherwood called it, with that funny little quirk in the corner
of his mouth, "a dwelling in amity, more precious than jewels or fine
gold."

And it was just that. Nan had had experience enough in the houses of her
school friends to know that none of them were homes like her own.

All was amity, all was harmony, in the little shingled cottage on this
short by-street of Tillbury.

It was no grave and solemn place where the natural outburst of childish
spirits was frowned upon, or one had to sit "stiff and starched" upon
stools of penitence.

No, indeed! Nan had romped and played in and about the cottage all her
life. She had been, in fact, of rather a boisterous temperament until
lately.

Her mother's influence was always quieting, and not only with her little
daughter. Mrs. Sherwood's voice was low, and with a dear drawl in it, so
Nan declared.

She had come from the South to Northern Illinois, from Tennessee, to
be exact, where Mr. Sherwood had met and married her. She had grace and
gentleness without the languor that often accompani