“What’s your father doing now, Kettles?”
“Drinkin’,” answered Kettles at once. “He come home last night, and—”
“There, there, that’ll do,” said Nurse hastily. “We don’t want to hear about that just now. You finish your tea and run home to mother.”
And in spite of beseeching looks from the girls, Kettles was shortly afterwards hurried away with her jug of tea-leaves, and Nurse gave a great sigh of relief as the big boots went clumping down the stairs.
“She’s far nicer than Mrs Grump,” said Nancy when they were left alone with Nurse, “only you don’t let her talk half enough. I wanted to ask her lots of things. Is her name really Kettles? and how did you come to know her? and why does she wear such large boots?”
It appeared that Kettles’ real name was Keturah, but being, Nurse explained, a hard sort of name to say, it had got changed into Kettles. “Her mother, a decent, hard-working woman, came to the College to scrub and clean sometimes. She was very poor, and had a great many children and a bad husband.” Here Nurse shook her head.
“What do you give her tea-leaves for?” asked Pennie.
“Why, my dear, when folks are too poor to buy fresh tea, they’re glad enough to get it after it’s been once used.”
“We’ve enjoyed ourselves tremendously,” said Nancy when, the visit nearly over, she and Pennie were putting on their hats again, “and you’ll ask Kettles to see us next time we come, won’t you?”
But this Nurse would not promise. It was hard, she said, to refuse any of the dear children anything, and she was aware how little she had to give them, but she knew her duty to herself and Mrs Hawthorne. Kettles must not be asked. “To think,” she concluded, “of you two young ladies sitting down to table with people out of Anchor and Hope Alley!”