Delia beamed down upon her beatifically and gave an extra touch to the
dainty tray. Nan from her chair scowled darkly upon the whole
performance. Delia had deserted her cause; had gone over bodily to the
enemy--that was plain. But she needn't flaunt her defection in Nan's
very face. Why, it was positively disgraceful the way Delia fetched
and carried for this person already, and looked, all the while, as if
she could hardly keep from dancing for very joy at the privilege.
Well, this governess needn't think that Nan was the kind to be won over
by a few smiles and some flickering dimples. When Nan said a thing she
meant it and she stuck to it, too. She wasn't a turn-coat like some
folks she knew.
"'Alas, alas! my dear old home--! To think that anybody who isn't
wanted should come and push herself like this into my dear old home!
Oh, father, her eyes are like--' Good gracious! all that description
part would have to be changed!" Nan pulled herself together with a
visible jerk. How could she speak of "needly eyes" when those of the
governess were so deep and soft and gray that they made you feel
like--no, they didn't either; but they weren't needly all the same.
No! That whole description part would have to be changed. Bother!
Well, if it came to that she guessed she could do it! "Her hated form
haunts me in my sleep, and I dream of her all night as I see her in the
daytime--little and dear, with her hair all shimmery and soft and her
eyes kind of kissing you softly all the time, and--" Goodness! that
would never do! Why it would be crazy to call on one's father to
rescue one from a person like that. Well, she'd leave out the
description altogether, that's what she'd do. She--
"Did you speak?" asked the governess, in her musical voice, turning
toward Nan inquiringly, and then the girl suddenly realized that she
had been mumbling her thoughts aloud.
"No, I didn't," she responded, with irritation. "It was too bad," she
declared to herself it was, "that after all the trouble she had taken
to learn the thing by heart, she should be pestered to death by having
to make changes in it this way--at the last minute, too. Why wasn't
Miss Blake tall and lanky and needly-eyed and a fright, she'd like to
know? It was just like her, though! So contrary! To change about and
upset all Nan's plans. Well, as long as there was so much fuss about
the thing, she s'posed she'd give it up."
"She's so little, it'll be easy enough to manage her. I guess it isn't
worth while. I can just say, to-morrow or next day, 'Miss Blake, I've
come to the conclusion you don't suit,' and she'll go right off. She
may cry a little, but I won't mind that; and if she begs to stay, I'll
say, 'Now there's no use teasing! When I once say a thing I mean it!'
and that will settle her once for all."
Delia was pressing the governess to take more supper when Nan again
waked to what was going on about her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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