“What a pity it is to be obliged to go to bed on a night like this,” she said regretfully, as she paused on the threshold.
“It would be a still greater pity if we could get no chance for sleep and forgetfulness, before the work of to-morrow began,” said practical Nell. “Come in and shut the door, Gertrude; you look just like a ghost.”
“I feel like one,” Gertrude answered dreamily. Then she said abruptly, “I have got a sensation about me that change is impending, and that we shall somehow be different to-morrow.”
“That follows as a matter of course, and to-morrow is always in advance of to-day. But I am too sleepy for moralizing, so let us go to bed,” Nell said, with a shiver, as she drew Gertrude in, and bolted the door.
Patsey and the two boys were already in bed and asleep. The three girls made haste to be ready for slumber also, and soon sleep and darkness held the little household in a profound hush until the coming of dawn.
Nell was early astir next morning. She made it a rule always to get her housework done before the cooking for the day began, and as she had mapped out an extra amount of housework for this particular morning, it behoved her to be up early to get it out of the way.
If Miss Alfreton were really coming, the room she would occupy must be scrubbed out, and put into fresh order for her arrival, so as soon as Gertrude could be persuaded out of bed Nell attacked the task with tremendous energy, turned almost all of the furniture out of doors into the cool shade thrown by the cedar, then scrubbed the floor and the wooden walls until the little chamber was redolent of cleanliness. Her housewifely instincts were very strong, and every part of her small domain must be as spotless as her hands could make it.
By the time the cleaning was done she had to start work in the kitchen, and was hard at work getting her first batch of pies baked, when a small boy of uncertain age appeared at the open door of the kitchen, and stood there as if not sure about entering.
He was a complete stranger to Nell, who knew most of the people, old and young, in the neighbourhood. He might have been merely nine or ten, judging by his size; or if one reckoned his age from the expression of his face, he would at once have been taken for fifteen or sixteen.
“Come in,” said Nell, pleasantly; then, seeing that he still hesitated, she asked, “What do you want?”