Nan saw the wisdom of Delia's counsel, and tried to content herself to wait. But the suspense of every minute was awful, and she felt herself growing frenzied under the strain. After a time the commotion in the next room ceased, and all was quiet as the grave. "She's getting on her hat now," gasped Nan. "She'll go away and think I'm a heathen and all sorts of horrid things. And she hasn't got any friends or folks of her own, and no house to go to but this. And I s'pose she's awfully poor, because she wouldn't be a governess if she wasn't, and oh, dear! I don't want to have any one be a beggar, and turned out of the only roof they've got over their heads on my account. That's what makes me feel so bad, Delia. That's the only thing. If she will go on her own account I'll--I'll be glad, but--oh, she mustn't go this way!" Delia turned away her face to hide a smile. "There's nothing to do but wait," she insisted. "If I go in there and tell her, and she hasn't heard, why it would only give you away; don't you see?" Nan let herself down in her rocking-chair with a dismal drop. "O dear!" she cried, "I never saw anything like it! The way things go wrong in this house! It's just perfectly horrid! I wish I was with my father, I do so! I guess it's nicer in India than it is here, anyway; and I'm sick and tired of living cooped up in this old stuffy place. So there!" Delia dusted some imaginary dust off the table with the corner of her apron, and went down stairs to finish up her work. In the street below the huckster was yelling "Chestnuts! Fresh-roasted chestnuts!" The little charcoal oven in his push-cart sent out a shrill, continuous whistle, and Nan had an impulse to throw something at him. What business had he to come here and make such a racket that she couldn't hear what was going on in the next room. He passed slowly down the street, his call and the whistle of his oven growing fainter and fainter, and finally fading quite away as he disappeared in the distance. Nan pricked up her ears. Surely the sounds she heard were those of moving feet in the next room. Back and forth they went, now nearer, that was to the closet, now further away again, that must be to the bureau. What could the governess be doing? The lid of her trunk was dropped, and Nan could distinctly hear the click of the catches as they fell in place. There was no further doubt about it! Miss Blake was going. A moment later, and before Nan could collect her wits, the door of the next room was briskly opened and closed, and the governess, hatted and cloaked, sped quickly from the house. Nan flew to the balusters with a hasty cry upon her lips, but was just in time to see the door swing heavily to; and that was all. She flung herself down stairs two steps at a time.