"For a moment Aunt Rebecca hesitated. I think she must have been petrified by my audacity. But she recovered herself and turned, and without a word went to my room and got Lilly from her 'little chair.' I was as complacent as if it had been quite the usual thing for Aunt Rebecca to fetch and carry for me. Indeed, perhaps I imagined I was instituting a new order of things, and that in future she would do my errands, instead of I hers. "She came back to the head of the stairway and I looked up pleasantly, half-expecting, I suppose, that she would come down and deliver my darling dolly safely into my hands. But she didn't. If I were giving orders she would obey me to the letter. She 'pitched me Lilly.' I gave a dismal wail of dismay as I saw my dear baby come hurtling through the air, but when she landed on her blessed head, and I heard the crack of breaking china, I just abandoned myself to grief and howled desperately. Aunt Rebecca went about her business as if nothing had happened, and by and by I stole off with my ruined dolly and cried to myself in the back yard--because I had no one else to cry to." "You poor little thing!" burst out Nan, indignantly. "What a detestable woman! As if she could have expected such a baby to know!" "You're wrong, Nan!" the governess said. "It was a wholesome lesson, and I am grateful to Aunt Rebecca for having given it to me." "Well, I shouldn't think you would be," insisted the girl rebelliously. "The idea of her expecting such a mite to understand!" "Ah, but you see I did understand. And I have never forgotten it. I have never asked any one to 'pitch me Lilly' since that day--I mean never when I could go and get her myself." Nan pondered over it moodily for a moment. "And did you have to stay in that house until you were grown up?" she demanded. "Oh, no! When I was about your age I went to boarding-school, and everything was changed and different after that." "How?" "Well, I made dear, faithful friends who took me to their hearts and who made my life rich with their love. All that other hungry, empty time was over, and for many years I never knew what it was to feel sad or lonely, or to have a wish that would not have been gladly gratified if it could be." "Now they were something like!" ejaculated Nan. "Dear me! I should think you would have been sorry when you got through school." Miss Blake made no reply. She put up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the fire, and for a second or two there was a deep hush in the room. Nan was the first to break the silence. "Goodness!" she cried, springing to her feet with a bound. "It's as dark as a pocket outside, and Delia'll think we're lost or something if we don't go home." Miss Blake surreptitiously gathered her work together and slipped it into her bag. "Yes, we must scamper," she exclaimed, as she turned to help Nan on with her coat.