A month ago the bare idea of having anyone from Anchor and Hope Alley into her house would have been impossible to Miss Unity; but Pennie had made her so familiar with the name and affairs of Kettles, and she had taken so much interest in making her clothes, that it no longer seemed so strange. Still, what would Betty say? A girl out of Anchor and Hope Alley, who had never been in a decent house before! It was surely too bold a step.
“You see, Miss,” went on Nurse, “it isn’t as if you wanted her to wait on you, or to open the door or such like. All she’s got to do is to help Betty below stairs, and to make beds, and so on. She’ll soon learn, and I’ll be bound she’ll answer better than a char-woman.”
Miss Unity took her departure with this bold idea becoming more and more fixed in her mind. There was a great deal in what Nurse had said, if she could only induce Betty to look at it in the same way; and above all how delighted Pennie would be, when she next came, to find Kettles not only wearing the clothes she had made; but actually established in the house. It all seemed to fit in so well that Miss Unity gathered courage. She had come out that morning feeling depressed and worried, and as though everything would go wrong; but now, as she turned into the Close, wondering how she should best open the subject to Betty, she was quite stirred and interested.
Betty had come back from the doctor with her arm in a sling. She was to keep it as still as possible, and on no account to try to use it.
“So you see, Betty,” said Miss Unity earnestly, “the importance of having someone to help you in your work.”
“Yes, Miss,” said Betty, with suspicion in every feature, and quite prepared to object to any person her mistress had secured.
“And I have made up my mind,” went on Miss Unity, “not to have a char-woman.”
“Ho, indeed, Miss!” said Betty, still suspicious.
“I know you object to them,” said her mistress, “and Mrs Margetts advises me to try a little girl she knows, who lives near here.”
If possible she would avoid the mention of Anchor and Hope Alley.