“She’s partly from Pennie, and partly from me, and partly from Dickie too,” said Nancy thoughtfully. “If Dickie hadn’t had the measles Pennie wouldn’t have stopped here, and if she hadn’t stopped here you would never have heard of Kettles. Dickie did put a penny into the box out of her slug-money. She took it out again, but she wanted to help with the mandarin. And after all she’s helped to give you Kettles.”
“Will she always stay here,” asked Pennie, “after Betty’s arm gets well?”
“If Betty finds her useful I should like her to stay,” said Miss Unity, but as she spoke she felt that she should never have the courage to suggest it.
The matter was, however, taken out of her hands by Nancy, who, as soon as Betty appeared to take away the tea-things, put the question point-blank:
“You’ll like Kettles to stay, won’t you, Betty? because what’s the good of making her look so nice if she’s to go back to Anchor and Hope Alley?”
“I’m quite agreeable to it, Miss Nancy, if it suits the mistress,” said Betty meekly. So the thing was settled at once. Kettles, out of Anchor and Hope Alley, had become Keturah, Miss Unity’s maid in the Close.
“She looks very nice now she’s Keturah,” said Nancy, as the little girls drove away, “but she isn’t funny any more. There was something I always liked about Kettles.”
And Kettles she always remained to the children at Easney, though the name was never heard at Nearminster.