him the governess was spoken of by but part of her
name. She chose to live incognito, you know what that is, Nan, because
she feared if he knew who was serving his child as governess he would
write to her in his proud fashion and say:

"No; I need no one to care for my daughter for love. Whomever I employ
I will pay. You are a wealthy woman. You need not work for money. My
few poor dollars are nothing to you. Besides--"

"And then I think, Nan, he would have referred to the old disagreement
and it would all have been very painful, and she would have had to go
away and been lonely ever after and have left undone her duty to
Florence's child. So she lived quietly in the old house with the
little girl and the servant and all went well for a year and
then--well, then, dear Nan, I think I need not tell what happened then.
But, oh, my dear, you are my own little girl--Florence's child and I
loved her, ah! I loved her so. For her sake you are mine now. Never
say that you are 'all alone' again. I have taken you as a sacred
trust. Come to me, Nan, for I am lonely too, I am lonely too."

CHAPTER XXI

ANOTHER CHRISTMAS

It was Christmas eve. Nan was sitting before the dining-room fire
curled up in a huge arm chair thinking. Her pale face had grown
wonderfully sweet during the last few weeks; the curves about her mouth
had softened; her eyes had lost their keen sparkle and gained a softer
light instead. She seemed to have undergone a complete transformation,
and any one seeing the headstrong hoyden of the year before would have
found it difficult to recognize her in this gentle-mannered girl with
her serene brow and patient eyes, to whom suffering had taught so hard
a lesson. Her black dress and her parted hair gave her a wonderfully
meek look. But Nan was not meek. She was merely controlled. The same
hot passions still rose in her breast, but she tried to restrain them
now.

This evening she was thinking over all that had happened during the
past year; especially she was trying to project her thoughts into the
future, and to imagine what would occur in the years to come. She had
not yet become accustomed to the idea of life without her father. It
seemed to her that he must be alive, and she often waked up in the
night from such a vivid dream of him that it seemed as though he really
stood beside her, and that she might feel his hand if she stretched
forth her own in the dark. It was difficult to