"It--isn't--_fair_!" she ended, enigmatically. She sat still for a moment, staring at Miss Milly. With her bright color Aunt Milly didn't look at all like a helpless invalid. "Maybe----" began Nancy, then stopped short. She rose abruptly to her feet. "I've got an idea that beats my bird's-nest all to pieces! I can't tell you now because you'd be frightened to death, but it's going to be wonderful! Let me hide this truck under your couch and now be very, very good until I come back. I must find B'lindy at once." Nancy, fired by her sudden purpose, interrupted B'lindy in the last of her "drying up" and demanded to know where she could find Mr. Webb. When B'lindy "'lowed she wa'n't his keeper, but he's most al'las hangin' 'round the smithy or Eaton's or the post-office or the hotel, 'cept when you wanted him, and then he wa'n't hangin' 'round nowhere," Nancy started off down the path, bareheaded. Fortune favored her, for Mr. Webb was "hangin' round the smithy and very delighted to see Miss Anne!" He had been wondering a lot about the coming of the girl to Happy House. "Somethin' sure to come of it," he had reflected again and again. Of course, he assured Nancy, he'd do anything he could for her. And Nancy was sure they might find all that they needed right there in the smithy. "It must be very comfortable and have some springs--and be safe, too. And if you can find some wheels with rubber tires--off an old baby carriage, they'll run more smoothly. And the seat must be big enough for a lady--but she's a _small_ lady!" Jonathan thought he "caught her idee. Old Mrs. King, over at North Hero, couldn't walk a step 'count of rheumatism, and she had a rig-up such as Nancy was describing." Yes, Timothy Hopkins at the smithy had most every kind of a thing about and he'd see what he could do, and Miss Anne could run down in the morning, early, before the stage started for North Hero. "And, Webb," Nancy levelled her sweetest smile, "don't even _try_ to think whom it's for--it's a secret." CHAPTER VI IN THE ORCHARD Until Webb could finish the task that Nancy had assigned to him, Nancy curbing her impatience, had to return to the study of "Joshua, Jacob and John." "It was John that was killed in the war of 1812, and now we have progressed to the next generation of Samuel and Ezekiel," she wrote to Claire. "But let me tell you that just as soon as Webb finishes the 'rig-up' (that is what he calls my perfectly beautiful idea) I'm not going to have a minute to spend on any of the old ancestors. Won't it be wonderful to see Aunt Milly's face when she knows about it? _Think_ of it, Claire--how we love to frolic all around this good old earth, and how awful it would be to be tied to a couch all your days--and in _such_ a room!" "After to-day my letters will be just scraps and you can picture your Nancy working madly in her tree-top!