her, and no doctor has ordered her off to the country. You must be the one to go, my dear Nan. It is the very thing for you."

"Oh, how can you say so?" I protested. "I am not a bit domesticated. I can't cook, and I am not fond of sewing."

"Then it is quite time you learned how to cook and look after a house," was my father's dictum. "You could not have a better teacher than your Aunt Patty. Did not Dr. Algar say you were to have some light employment that would occupy your thoughts without taxing your brain? Here it is, then. You will not be always hard at work. Your aunt will need some one to amuse her guests, to take them for walks, teach them to play croquet, and the like."

"But that is worse still!" I cried in dismay. "You don't know how stupid I am in company. Olive is the one to make herself agreeable to strangers, not I. I can never think of anything to say, unless it is the wrong thing. I am clever at saying that."

"Then you really must begin to acquire the art of being agreeable," said my father with a laugh. "It's all right, Nan, I have promised your aunt you shall go to her as soon as your mother thinks you are fit for the journey."

When father spoke in that tone I knew it was of no use to protest. He went away, leaving me to ponder this wholly unexpected solution of the problem of the future. The more I thought of it the less I liked it. I was a bookish girl, somewhat dull and absent-minded in general society, and inclined to despise people whose tastes were not intellectual. But, since books were now forbidden me, and country air was what I needed, I really had no excuse for objecting to the arrangement father had made. Mother and Olive were just as sure as he that it was the very thing for me. And when a sweet letter came from Aunt Patty, saying how sorry she was to learn from father of my ill-health, and consequent disappointment, and what a comfort it would be to her, if I would make "Gay Bowers" my home for twelve months, I felt bound to go.

A girl can seldom go anywhere without the subject of clothes demanding consideration. It did not seem that I should require an extensive wardrobe in such a quiet country house; but, while she declared she could not afford to put all her girls into black, mother feared that my aunt might be hurt if I did not make my appearance attired in mourning. The idea gave me an agreeable, though transient, sense of importance, for to have new clothes was an event in the lives of us girls.

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