“How’s Mrs Crump?” inquired the latter.
“Well, she’s rather contrairy in her temper just now, my dear,” answered Nurse.
“She always is, isn’t she?” returned Nancy.
“I can’t altogether deny that, Miss Nancy,” said Nurse, chuckling comfortably; “but you see it’s a constant trouble with her that her room window don’t look on the street. She’s been used to a deal of life before she came here, and she finds it dull, and that makes her short. When you’ve been used to stirring and bustling about, charing and so on, it do seem a bit quiet, I daresay.”
“I should have thought,” said Nancy, “that she’d have been glad to rest after all that; but I think I’d rather have a room looking on the street too. I should like watching people pass.”
Pennie was sitting in her favourite place, the window-seat, where Nurse’s flower-pots stood in a row—a cactus, a geranium, and some musk. She looked out into the garden.
“I think this way’s much the nicest,” she said, “because of the flowers and the grass, and the quietness.”
“Tea’s ready!” exclaimed Nancy, springing up from the fire with one scarlet cheek, and waving the last piece of toast on the top of the toasting-fork.
The little party drew in their chairs, Pennie pouring out tea, as usual on these occasions, for to her own great delight Nurse was always treated rather as a guest than hostess. By the good luck which, she considered, always attended her, she had that very morning received a present of a pot of honey, and she was pressing this on her visitors when the sound of a footstep was heard on the stairs.
“Perhaps it’s Mrs Crump!” exclaimed Nancy eagerly. “If it is, do ask her to tea.”