“For me? But I don’t expect any parcel. There must be a mistake, surely!” exclaimed Nell, in great astonishment.
“ ‘Miss Eleanor Hamblyn, care of Mrs. Nichols, Bratley,’ ” read the baggage-clerk. “It don’t look much like a mistake, seeing that there ain’t two of you. Will you carry it along with you, or shall I bring it over first thing in the morning?”
“I will carry it, of course. How much sleep do you suppose that I should get to-night, with the thought of a mysterious unopened parcel on my mind? Then the depot might get burned down in the night, or robbed—in fact, anything might happen.” And she laughed as she took the parcel, though she was trembling with nervous expectation.
“So it might, miss,” replied Peters, in a tone of solemn dejection. And he touched his cap as he turned away; but a careful observer would have detected a cheerful grin, which, beginning at his mouth, widened until it covered his whole countenance, like the ripples which cover a pond when a stone is thrown in.
Nell, being occupied with her parcel, did not see the smile, and would not have understood it if she had. As it was, she went off at a run, and burst in upon Mrs. Nichols like a whirlwind in miniature.
“Just look, a parcel has come for me by rail! Where can it be from, do you think?” she cried.
“Best open it and see,” suggested the stout woman, whose face, as she turned her head away, reflected the same smile as the baggage-clerk’s had displayed.
In agitated silence Nell wrestled with the knots. The quicker way would have been to cut the string; but where rigid economy had to be studied, cutting string was regarded as wilful, wicked waste, so the knots had to come undone.
