y from the northeast, and the
air was cold and raw. Nan shuddered as she walked, and wished Ruth
were safe and sound in her own warm home, which she never should have
been permitted to leave this blustering day. A score of plans for
ridding herself of her troublesome little follower crowded Nan's brain.
She might run and leave the youngster behind. But then Ruth would cry,
and Nan could not bear to inflict pain on a little child. She might
take her up in her arms and carry her bodily back to her own door.
Well, and what then? Why, simply, she would get the credit of abusing
the little girl. There seemed no way out of it. She stalked on
grimly, and when she came to Reid's lot she promptly and dexterously
climbed its fence and continued her way in silence. But the fence
proved an insurmountable obstacle to Ruth. She stood outside and
wailed dismally. The sound smote Nan, and made her turn around.

"Ruth Newton, you deserve to be spanked!" she announced, severely.

The child uttered another wail of entreaty. Nan sprang up to the
cross-bar of the palings, gathered her skirts about her knees, and
leaped down.

"Here, let me boost you, since you will get over," she said sharply.

After they were both safely on the other side Ruth's spirit rose, and
she capered about in the freedom of the open space as wildly as a young
colt. Nan had come for chestnuts. She announced the same presently to
Ruth. Ruth shouted gleefully.

"I'm going to climb the tree. You can stand underneath and pick up
what I shake, only mind you don't get the burr-prickles in your
fingers, for they hurt like sixty," warned Nan.

The child nodded her head and pranced over the brown, stubbly ground
with dancing feet, her cheeks aglow and her eyes flashing with
satisfaction.

She watched Nan with the liveliest interest, and when the older girl
was once comfortably ensconced in the lofty branches, she executed a
sort of war-dance underneath, and spread her tiny skirt to catch the
rain of nuts that Nan shook down upon her from above. But presently
this began to pall.

"I want to come up where you are, Nannie," she called, coaxingly.

"You'll have to want then," retorted Nan, carelessly munching nuts like
a squirrel.

"I could climb's good as anything if only I had a boost," drawled the
child ruefully.

Nan sprinkled a handful of shucks on her head.

"I'm going to try," ventured Ruth.

Nan laughed.

Ruth looked around, trying to di