A little after the first of the year Daniella and her mother were on their way to Texas. Daniella\'s departure was not made without tears and vows of eternal friendship. "If I can\'t write very well yet," she said, "I\'ll try, and somebody kin tell me how to spell the words."

"We\'ll all write," the four girls promised, "and some day we shall expect to see you again."

"Where?" asked Daniella eagerly.

"We don\'t know just where," returned Nan, "but one never knows what will happen in this world, Aunt Sarah says, and so I am going to say we will meet again." It always pleased Nan to anticipate the improbable.

They all went to the station to see the Boggs\'s off, and, as the train moved out, they saw a pair of tearful eyes at the car window, and that was the last of Daniella for many a day. Both she and her mother had been comfortably provided for through many contributions of clothing and money, so they did not go away empty-handed.

[Pg 356]

"Well," said Nan with a long sigh as they watched the smoke from the train drift toward the mountains, "I am glad we can think of them somewhere else than in that lonely little cabin up there."

"It is a comfort," said Mary Lee, "but I really shall miss Daniella very much, and hasn\'t she learned a lot since that time we found her, a wild, little scary thing in the mountains?"

"Aunt Helen says there are all sort of possibilities in Daniella, if she ever gets any sort of a chance."

"She won\'t get much on a ranch," returned Mary Lee.

"Who knows?" said Nan thoughtfully.

Nan\'s music lessons commenced before the holidays were over. She went three times a week to her Aunt Helen, and, although there were days when instead of wrist movements, five finger exercises, and close legato, she gave more time to playing tunes by ear, on the whole, she was conscientious in her practicing, and it took very few words to fire her ambition or to make her appreciate the necessity of patient striving.

"All musicians must go through just this uninteresting drudgery," her aunt would tell her. "Think, Nan, even Beethoven and Chopin and Wagner had to train their fingers by these exercises and scales, so you must not expect to do less." [Pg 357]Then Nan would try her utmost and the next time would show the improvement naturally following diligent, painstaking study. It was fortunate for her that Miss Helen knew how to appeal to her imagination and that she varied her talks, upon the dry details, with little anecdotes of the great masters, and with snatches of their best compositions to illustrate what she was saying, so that Nan, with her knowledge of the rudiments of music, gained also a knowledge of musical history which made her work much more interesting.

At this time Nan and Mary Lee, too, were fired with an ambition to further improve their minds, this following certain talks with their Aunt Helen, and they determined upon a course of reading.

"We\'ll take Macaulay\'s History of England," said Mary Lee; "it will be the most useful."

The two girls were on their knees before the old bookcase which held mostly old standard works, and few modern books.

"We must have some maps and dictionaries and things," said Nan, clapping the covers of a volume together to beat out the dust. So with maps and books of reference, they established themselves in a quiet corner upon two or three consecutive Saturdays, but at the end of the third Saturday, they found themselves always starting with a sentence [Pg 358]which read: "The king had no standing army." Beyond this, they never seemed able to go, mainly because the book to girls of their age meant simply a very dry record, and they found it more interesting to read some anecdote from one of the books of reference, and to talk about what their aunt had told them of England of the present day. Therefore, at last Macaulay was laid aside, and the only fact they remembered reading from the book was that the king had no standing army.

Although Miss Sarah had never set foot across the brook, she tacitly permitted the intercourse between the two families, and even admitted that Miss Helen was not to be included in the censure which she so sweepingly bestowed upon her mother. Of the children\'s grandmother, she would never speak, and only by a toss of the head and a sarcastic smile did they know that she had not altered her opinion of the elder Mrs. Corner. Every attention or gift the girls received was attributed to the influence of Miss Helen, and Miss Sarah honestly believed that in her opinion she was right.

As for Miss Helen, she never came to her sister-in-law\'s house. "I am biding my time," she told her mother. "When Mary comes back, I think we shall have matters on a different footing."

"I\'m afraid I can never bring myself to going [Pg 359]there," sighed Mrs. Corner. "I\'m too old to give up all my prejudices, Helen, but I shall try to meet my son\'s wife half way."

"If I know Mary Gordon Lee," said Helen, "you will not have to go even half way."

And indeed there was no going half way for anybody, as an occurrence soon changed everything for those who lived at Uplands. It took place one night when the winds of March were sweeping through the mountain forests, sighing through the pines in Nan\'s summer retreat, and uncovering the young pushing blades, already started from the ground down by the brook.

Nan, who was a light sleeper, was startled from her slumbers by the dashing by of engines, and by hearing cries of "Fire!" She slipped out of bed and drew aside the curtains to look out, wondering if the barn on their own place could have caught, but it was beyond the brook that the sky was red and the flames were mounting high. In an instant, she realized where the danger was. She rushed to the boys\' door. "Ran, Ran," she cried, banging on the door, "Uplands is on fire!" She stopped to pound on her Aunt Sarah\'s door. "Uplands is on fire!" she cried. Then she ran back to her own room and slipped on her clothes.

In a few minutes the bolt rattled at Ran\'s door [Pg 360]and he went flying down-stairs, two steps at a time. Then Aunt Sarah appeared in her dressing gown. "What was it you were saying, Nan?" she asked.

Nan was at the window. "Just come here and see," she said, and Aunt Sarah joined her. "Goodness!" she exclaimed. The fire was burning more fiercely now, fanned by the high winds. They could hear the "Chug, Chug" of the engines, the crackle of the burning, the hoarse cries of the men.

A sob arose in Nan\'s throat. "I can\'t bear to look at it, and yet it fascinates me," she said. "Oh, Aunt Sarah, do you suppose they are safe? I wish I could go and see."

"Not a step do you go," decided Aunt Sarah. "I\'m going down to put some water to boil and be on hand if I\'m wanted. You\'d better go back to bed. The others are all fast asleep and that\'s what you ought to be."

"As if I could sleep," said Nan. "Please let me come down-stairs."

"Come along, then," said Aunt Sarah. And Nan followed.

In a short time there was a sound of voices outside and a knock at the door, then Ran came rushing in. "They are bringing Mrs. Corner and Miss [Pg 361]Helen here," he said. "I told them to. That was right, wasn\'t it? This is the nearest house."

"It was quite right," returned Miss Sarah, stiffening herself, but going to the living-room to make a light, and then to the front door, candle in hand. "Bring them right in," she said, speaking to the forms moving about in the darkness.

"It took a little while to get a carriage," spoke up one of the men, "and the ladies had to stand outside for a time. They\'d better have something warm."

Miss Sarah opened the door to admit first Mrs. Corner, helped along slowly by two men, and then Miss Helen. Both had blankets thrown around them over their night-dresses, and both were in their bare feet. "Right in here," repeated Miss Sarah.

The men established Mrs. Corner upon the old threadbare sofa, and Miss Helen sank into a rocking-chair. Nan had immediately gone back to the kitchen and presently appeared with two cups of steaming coffee. She went over at once to the sofa. "Won\'t you drink this, grandmother?" she said. "It will do you good."

"I am very cold, very cold," returned Mrs. Corner weakly. "Where am I?" she asked as the sense of warmth pervaded her.

[Pg 362]

"At our house grandmother," Nan answered.

"Where\'s Helen?" she asked with a bewildered look.

Miss Helen came to her. "Here I am, mother dear, perfectly safe. Drink this hot coffee and you will feel better."

Mrs. Corner took the coffee obediently and then lay back with closed eyes. Nan threw her arms around her Aunt Helen. "Darling," she said, "please drink your coffee, too, before it gets cold, and come over here by the stove."

"I\'ll sit by mother," returned Miss Helen. "Never mind about me."

"But I do mind about you," said Miss Sarah, standing over her with the coffee. "Drink this right down, Miss Helen." And Miss Helen, with a forlorn little smile, obeyed.

"We must get your mother straight to bed," Miss Sarah continued. "I\'ll go up and get ready for her. Do you think you could help me carry her up, Ran?" she asked the boy, who was standing by.

"Indeed I can!" he answered. And in a few minutes both Mrs. Corner and her daughter were in Miss Sarah\'s own bed, and that capable person was grimly seeing to their comfort.

Little was said on either side, but after Miss Sarah had placed hot bricks to Miss Hele............