"Nancy Weston Corner," exclaimed Aunt Sarah, "where have you been all day? Who was that you were talking to up there at the house? I saw you coming away."

"It was my Aunt Helen," replied Nan, stoutly.

"And have you been up there hobnobbing with her and that wicked old mother of hers?"

"I reckon I\'ve a right to hobnob with my own aunt," retorted Nan, immediately up in arms, "and as for my grandmother, she isn\'t there and she\'d not be wicked if she were."

"Much you know about it. If you did know, you\'d have more pride than to insinuate yourself into a household where you are not wanted."

"I do know all about it, and I didn\'t insinuate myself; I was invited. Aunt Helen invited me."

"When did you see her? How did she find you out?"

"I saw her weeks ago and my mother knew all about it. She did not object in the least."

"That\'s a likely story."

[Pg 168]

Nan\'s eyes flashed. "I\'ll thank you to believe, Miss Sarah Elizabeth Dent, that I don\'t tell stories."

"Don\'t you speak to me in that way," returned Aunt Sarah angrily. "March yourself home. You know as well as you\'re alive that neither your mother nor I ever cross the brook and that you are not allowed to do it either."

Nan wrenched her shoulder from Aunt Sarah\'s grasp. "I don\'t care anything about what you do," she said, rebelliously; "my mother knows I go to my grandmother\'s house, so there."

"We\'ll see about this," said Aunt Sarah. "Not a step do you go from the house till I have word from your mother. I\'d be ashamed to be beholden to them for so much as a crust of bread, and to let them have the chance to patronize you after all that is past is more than my family pride will allow. You knew perfectly well I would never give my consent to your going there and you sneaked off without so much as a word to any one and were gone all day so that I worried——"

"I don\'t see why you worried," Nan interrupted. "I am often gone all day."

"Don\'t contradict me," said Aunt Sarah severely. "There is one thing I will not stand from servants and children and that is impertinence. You can go to my room and stay there till I can inquire into this. [Pg 169]I\'ll sleep with Mary Lee. You don\'t cross the threshold of that room till your mother says so."

Nan\'s indignation by this time had risen to its greatest height. If she were to be punished for one impertinence, why not for more? So she turned and said: "You needn\'t touch me; I\'ll go. But I\'ll tell you one thing; that I don\'t believe my grandmother is half as wicked as you are and she\'d not treat me this way no matter what. If I do go to your room I shall ask the Lord to bless her in her down-sittings and her up-risings just the same. You can write to my mother if you want to, and ask her if I did wrong to go to see my Aunt Helen. I know what she will say and I\'ll ask her if I can\'t stay there altogether till she comes back. They wouldn\'t call me a story-teller and they\'d treat me better than you do. They are nearer kin anyhow."

Having delivered herself of this indignant speech, Nan took to her heels, reached the house, ran to her aunt\'s room and slammed the door after her, then she burst into tears of rage. Never before had her temper brought her to the making of such remarks to Aunt Sarah. They had had their little tiffs but such anger on both sides had never been displayed.

If there was one subject above another upon which Miss Sarah was excitable, it was the Corner family. She resented to the very core of her being [Pg 170]the elder Mrs. Corner\'s neglect of her son\'s family, and that Nan should deliberately make overtures aroused all her indignation. Nan could have said nothing to enrage her more than to compare her unfavorably with Mrs. Corner, senior. So there was open war between them and Nan might well feel that she had gone too far.

However, the girl was more aggrieved and angry than sorry, and was specially annoyed that she had been sent to her aunt\'s room; that seemed to her a needless severity, for what harm would there be in allowing her to occupy the room she shared with her sisters? But it was some satisfaction, Nan reflected, that her aunt was punishing herself likewise, for she disliked a bedfellow.

It was not long before Jack\'s pattering feet were heard upon the stair and presently she burst into the larger room calling: "Nannie, Nannie, where are you?"

"Here," answered Nan in a depressed voice.

Jack stuck her head in at the door. "What you in here for, Nan?" she asked.

"Aunt Sarah sent me," returned Nan, biting her lip and trying to keep the tears back.

"Why, what for?"

"Just because I went to Uplands without asking her. Mother did not object when she was here, [Pg 171]and Aunt Helen was there and wanted me." It was a relief to pour out her grievances if only to Jack.

"A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind," and Jack\'s own experiences made her appreciate the situation. Moreover, it seemed the height of calamity to her that Nan should be punished; Nan, who was the eldest and who really had a right to read lectures to her younger sisters. That she should be in disgrace was something to awe and impress one. "She\'s a mean old thing," said Jack winding her arms around her sister\'s neck. "Who\'s Aunt Helen, Nannie?"

"Papa\'s own sister, and she has come back to Uplands. I saw her before mother went away, but I didn\'t tell any one but mother. It was a secret and I couldn\'t tell. She wants me to come over there as soon as she and grandmother get back from Washington, and now I can\'t go for Aunt Sarah says I must stay here till she hears from mother. She was just furious with me. They are not her kinsfolk; I don\'t see why she should meddle. Aunt Helen will expect me and will wonder why I don\'t come." And the tears again started to Nan\'s eyes.

"I\'ll go tell her and then she\'ll know why," said Jack generously.

"And get punished, too. No, ducky dear, I [Pg 172]can\'t have that, but it is good of you to offer to go. I\'ll have to think out some way, for if I am to be shut up here till Aunt Sarah hears from mother, Aunt Helen must have some word. I don\'t think I did a thing wrong in going to see my own aunt, but Aunt Sarah says I have no pride, and that it is wicked to think of wanting to go over there, but that is just her way of thinking. It isn\'t mine at all, and it is horrid, horrid for her to shut me up as if I were a baby, and to shame me before—before the boys."

Jack gazed at her in silent sympathy. She understood all about it. Many and many a time had she passed through just such tribulations. Many and many a time had she been punished for something in which she could see no wrong. How many times had her motives been misunderstood, and how often had she been censured for what seemed to her a praiseworthy act? Oh, yes, she could readily sympathize with Nan, and because Nan had more than once helped her out of a difficulty, she would do her best for her sister. "I\'ll bring you something to eat," she promised. "You shan\'t be fed on bread and water, and I\'ll tell the boys that Aunt Sarah is an old witch and is just torturing you."

Nan at that moment felt like heartily endorsing that opinion but she suddenly remembered that it [Pg 173]would never do to undermine Aunt Sarah\'s authority over Jack, so she replied rather weakly: "Oh, I suppose it is all right. She thinks she is doing the best thing because she doesn\'t know all about it. When she hears from mother, she will understand. I don\'t mind anything so much as disappointing Aunt Helen. I wish you would find Mary Lee and send her to me," she said with sudden resolution, feeling that Jack\'s championship might not serve her as well as Mary Lee\'s, for the latter being a calm and more dispassionate person was usually more convincing, and if Nan could persuade her that she was a martyr, the boys would be given a proper view of the situation.

"What do you want Mary Lee for?" asked Jack a little jealously and because she must always know the whys and wherefores.

"I want to see her before Aunt Sarah does," said Nan with a ghost of a smile, and Jack departed upon her errand.

It was not long before Mary Lee, all curiosity, made her appearance. That Aunt Sarah should have exercised her authority in such a decided manner, and that Nan should have fallen under her displeasure was a matter of no small moment to each of the four Corners, for who knew now where the blow might next fall? "Of course," commented [Pg 174]Mary Lee, when Nan\'s story was told, "it was because you didn\'t ask Aunt Sarah\'s permission, and because you answered her so. And then, I really don\'t see, Nan, how you could have been willing to go over there, after all that has happened. You know how Aunt Sarah feels about it and mother, too."

"M............