the coffee-pot on the range.

Nan tossed her head scornfully. "Well, I like that! I should think
you'd be ashamed! A perfect stranger like her!"

Delia did not answer. She was crushing ice for the olives, and as Nan
spoke she bent her face over the table and pounded away in silence.
But when she had finished, she lifted her head and said, amiably:

"Oh, you can't tell. By the looks of her I should think she is a
good-natured little body. She has the true eyes. When you see eyes
like that you can mostly be sure they've an honest soul behind 'em. I
shouldn't wonder if she'd be a good friend to any one who'd let her."

"Huh!" sneered Nan, wrathfully, "that means, I s'pose, that you intend
to let her. Never talk to me of turn-coats any more, Delia Connor!"

Delia caught up a coal-hod and strode deliberately off toward the
cellar stairs. When she came back she was laden down with kindlings
and coal.

"What you going to do with those?" demanded Nan, imperatively.

"Build a fire in the library. I guess a spark'll look good to the poor
little soul--coming in out of the cold and wet."

This was the last straw. Nan's eyes flashed, and she tore after Delia
upstairs, scolding as fast as the words would come.

"The idea! The idea! A fire! 'Poor little soul!' And many's the
time I've come in out of the cold and you haven't even as much as lit
the gas! Oh, no; never mind me! I can come in out of the cold till
every tooth in my head chatters, and you wouldn't care a straw. Why,
Delia Connor, we never have that fire lit. You just know we don't!
There hasn't been a fire in that grate since daddy went away! You know
very well there hasn't, and now the first thing you do is to light it
for that horrid governess-woman that's going to boss you 'round like
anything, and make me do all sorts of hateful things. I tell you what
it is, Delia Connor, you don't care a single thing about me. I know
just how 'twill be. You'll help her to do anything she wants to, and
you'll never stand up for me a bit. It's mean of you, Delia! It's
downright mean of you. And it's just because she's got those dimples
and things, and smiles at you as if you were her best friend. But she
needn't think she can manage me. I'm not going to be ordered about by
her, if she has got a soft voice and shiny eyes!"

Nan and the fire sputtered and blazed as though they were trying to see
which could outdo the other, and Delia stood by looking