"I wish I had not come to-day. I shall only be in the way. I am so sorry!"
"We must think what to do. It is a little awkward, isn't it,—just at the moment when we are turned out of house and home? Awkward, I mean, because we had hoped to make you so comfortable, and now—But nobody is hurt, and that is such a comfort. The chimneys fell on the back top room and smashed through floor after floor, carrying everything with them. Anybody on that side of the house must have been killed. But my father was in the dining room, and mother and Nan and I were in the drawing room, and both servants were in front. Nan would have gone to the back in another minute. Think—if she had been underneath! All the rest is nothing in comparison."
"No, indeed!" murmured Lettice.
"This is the house where we are lodging. Come and find my mother. It will do her good to see you. She is wonderfully composed—wonderfully little upset by it all."
Lettice thought Prue no less marvellous. She was ushered into a shabby little lodging-house parlour, there to be affectionately received by Mrs. Valentine.
"This is a most unpleasant welcome for you, my dear," the old lady said kindly, with her placid look.
She and Prue were actually less pale and shaken, though they had been on the spot at the moment of the catastrophe, than was Lettice, coming in afterwards to hear of it.
"I am only so sorry! If I had not fixed on to-day!"
"No one can tell this sort of thing beforehand. It is all quite right," Mrs. Valentine said calmly. She looked at Prue, and added, "The cabman?"
"Yes; I told him to wait for a minute."