"Sh! She'll hear you! She's right in front of us--only those men between."

"No she won't, either. We're too far away. Didn't I tell you Lu's and Ruth's friendship was for one night only? I knew well enough why Lu asked her to come. Any one could see through that. She wants to learn how to skate, and this was as ready a way as any to be taught, and she jumps at the chance."

"Oh, do hush! She'll hear!"

"Don't care if she does. I don't know what your opinion is, but mine is that it's positively brazen of her to do such things before a crowd like this. Dragging John Gardiner into it, too! It's a disgrace!"

"Sh, please! There he comes!"

Nan pulled herself wearily forward a step or two to meet him.

"I say, what's up? What's the matter?" he demanded anxiously, looking into her face and seeing the change it had undergone.

"Nothing! Nothing!" she rea.s.sured him quickly. "I'm tired, that's all. And I didn't realize these people were watching us. Let's get out of this. I hate the way they stare. I want to go home."

John took her by the elbow and steered for the bank.

"Won't you find Grace and Louie first? You came with them, didn't you?

They won't know what's become of you."

"I don't care! I want to go home!" she repeated irritably.

They sped forward silently, and in a moment had reached the sh.o.r.e. Nan trembled so as she tried to unfasten her skates that John pushed her hands aside and made her submit to having him a.s.sist her.

"You've caught cold!" he said remorsefully, "I was a brute to keep urging you on. But I didn't dream you were tired. You looked so bright and well."

"I'm not tired. I haven't caught cold!" said Nan. "Don't bother about me, please. Go back and finish up your skate!"

"Thank you kindly, ma'am," rejoined he, removing his own skates. "But I've finished it up already," and he grasped her arm and tramped her off in the direction of the Park entrance with vigorous steps.

"Won't Lou and Ruth wonder?" he ventured again after a moment of silence.

"No! They don't care!" cried Nan, dismally.

"The mischief they don't!" and John gave vent to an exclamation of disbelief. "Why, Ruth was only telling me half an hour ago how good and generous you were, and Louie caught me in the Lodge and went into regular spasms over you. You're the patientest, the generousest--everythingelse-est girl she knows. I had actually to tear myself away from her raptures when I saw that you were free of her and could take a turn with me."

Nan shook her head.

"No, you're wrong, John!" she said hopelessly. "They don't like me.

None of them do. It's no use. I thought Christmas eve I might make them, perhaps--but I give it up. I'm too--different!"

"Now, see here, Nan!" cried John, stopping suddenly in the middle of the path and confronting her squarely, "this change of base has come on you all of a sudden. You weren't in such a state before. You've seen something or heard something that's given you a turn. Say now, haven't you, honestly?"

Nan gulped and nodded grimly.

"I thought so. Well, now, you say you're different from the other girls, and so you are in most ways, but just at present you're doing the silliest trick I know. Going off by yourself and making people miserable all around. Do you know what a fellow would do in your place? Why, he'd go straight to the man he'd heard or seen back-biting him and he'd make him come out fair and square and own up--or shut up.

'You pays your money and you takes your choice.' That's what a fellow would do. But girls prefer to be martyrs and go about 'letting concealment prey upon their damask cheeks' and all that namby-pamby nonsense. Pshaw! I wouldn't give a rush for a girl's courage. It's all humbug."

"It isn't any such thing!" cried Nan, hastening to defend her s.e.x. "It isn't because I'm afraid that I don't go straight up to the--the person. It's because I have too much pride. I wouldn't demean myself by letting her know I care."

"Oh, fudge! Pride! I like that! Care? Why, whoever she is, she can see that, anyhow, with half an eye. It's as plain as preaching. You came with Lu and Ruth, and were as gay and jolly as could be. Then, all of a sudden, you turn grumpy and want to go home, and say Lu and Ruth don't like you. The explanation of that is simple enough. You've heard some one saying something about you, or pretending to repeat something Lu and Ruth have said about you. There! Now haven't I hit the nail on the head?"

Nan made no reply.

"I wager I have, though," continued the young fellow, watching her closely, and drawing many of his conclusions from the evidence of her tell-tale face. "And I'd be ashamed, even if I were a girl, to let myself be worried by a thing like that. Besides, it isn't fair to Lu and Ruth. You ought to give them a chance to set themselves straight.

You've no right to believe things of them till you've their own word for it that it's true. Give them a chance, and if they act queer you can throw them over."

"But I can't ask them," burst out Nan. "It wasn't anything they said.

It was about the way they feel, and if I give them a chance they may throw me over."

John laughed. "True for you. They may. But anyway, you'd have done the just thing. Whatever they did to you, you'd have played fair."

Nan thought a moment. Suddenly she turned on her heel and began to retrace her steps. "I'm going back," she said, stoutly, "to find Lu and Ruth! and--and--give them that chance."

"There! Now you're behaving like an honest man," announced John, with gusto. "One can't afford to be too perpendicular."

But before they had taken a dozen steps they came upon the two girls themselves, running breathlessly toward them.

"O Nan!" panted Louie. "What is the matter? Are you sick? Are you hurt? We couldn't find you anywhere!"

"We looked all over and got terribly nervous, and at last Mary Brewster told us you had gone home," Ruth broke in, gaspingly.

"She said John had taken you, and that you kind of walked as if you were dizzy or something. We've run all the way! Do say, are you sick?" pleaded Louie.

"Or hurt?" articulated Ruth.

John and Nan regarded each other solemnly for a moment. Then they both broke into a peal of laughter. Nan was the first to speak.

"No, I'm not sick and I wasn't hurt--the way you mean. I was a goose--that's all. I want you to forgive me."

"What for?" demanded the girls, in a breath.

"Why, for--for--making you run after me," replied Nan.

CHAPTER XIV

CHANGES

"Let's go back after luncheon," suggested Ruth as they tramped homeward.

The others a.s.sented heartily enough, and Nan was so eager to return to her sport that she did not wait for Delia to let her in at the upper door, but burst through the bas.e.m.e.nt way, and ran against Miss Blake in the lower hall.

"Oh, excuse me!" she panted. "We've had a glorious time. We're going out again. Please may I have a bite of something quick, so I can run?

We want to make the most of the daylight, and Lu can almost go alone."