"I don't blame you a bit," said Nancy Ellen. "In the same place
I'd have taken it myself."

"You wouldn't have had to," said Kate. "I'm too abrupt -- too
much like the gentleman himself. You would have asked him in a
way that would have secured you the letter with no trouble."

Nancy Ellen highly appreciated these words of praise before her
lover. She arose immediately.

"Maybe I could do something with him now," she said. "I'll go and
see."

"You shall do nothing of the kind," said Kate. "I am as much
Bates as he is. I won't be taunted afterward that he turned me
out and that I sent you to him to plead for me."

"I'll tell him you didn't want me to come, that I came of my own
accord," offered Nancy Ellen.

"And he won't believe you," said Kate.

"Would you consent for me to go?" asked Robert Gray.

"Certainly not! I can look out for myself."

"What shall you do?" asked Nancy Ellen anxiously.

"That is getting slightly ahead of me," said Kate. "If I had been