yself."

Miss Tredgold left the room. She had a very stately walk. The girls
always spoke of her movements as "sailing." Miss Tredgold now sailed
across the lawn, and in the same dignified fashion came up to the
secluded nook where the girls, with Nancy King in their midst, were
enjoying themselves. They were all talking eagerly. Nancy King was seated
almost in the center of the group; the other girls were bending towards
her. As Miss Tredgold appeared in view Josephine was exclaiming in her
high-pitched, girlish voice:

"Oh, I say, Nancy! What screaming fun!"

When Josephine spoke Lucy clapped her hands, Helen laughed, Verena looked
puzzled, and Pauline's expression seemed to say she longed for something
very badly indeed.

"My dears, what are you all doing?" suddenly cried Aunt Sophia.

She had come up quietly, and they had none of them heard her. It was just
as if a pistol had gone off in their ears. The whole nine jumped to their
feet. Nancy's red face became redder. She pushed her gaily trimmed hat
forward over her heated brows. She had an instinctive feeling that she
had never before seen any one so dignified and magnificent as Miss Sophia
Tredgold. She knew that this was the case, although Miss Sophia's dress
was almost dowdy, and the little brown slipper which peeped out from
under the folds of her gray dress was decidedly the worse for wear. Nancy
felt at the same time the greatest admiration for Miss Tredgold, the
greatest dislike to her, and the greatest terror of her.

"Aunt Sophia," said Verena, who could be a lady if she chose, "may I
introduce our special friend----"

"And crony," interrupted Nancy.

"Our special friend, Nancy King," repeated Verena. "We have known her all
our lives, Aunt Sophia."

"How do you do, Miss King?" said Miss Tredgold.

She favored "the young person," as she termed Miss King, with a very
distant bow.

"Girls," she said, turning to the others, "are you aware that preparation
hour has arrived? Will you all go quietly indoors?--Miss King, my nieces
are beginning their studies in earnest, and I do not allow the hour of
preparation to be interfered with by any one."

"I know all about that," said Nancy in a glib voice. "I was at a
first-rate school myself for years. Weren't we kept strict, just! My
word! we couldn't call our noses our own. The only language was
_parlez-vous_. But it was a select school--very; and now that I have
left, I like to feel that I am accomplis