This opened straight into the family living-room, which was in a state of confusion such as Nell had never seen equalled. Dirty crockery was strewn on tables, chairs, and floor. Eatables of various sorts were also lying about in the same disorder. One pair of boots and a hat stood on the dresser, close to an untrimmed lamp and a basin half full of milk, while a loaf of bread, with a knife sticking in it, lay on a coat which had been flung down on a bench near the door.
“Oh, what a fearful muddle!” she murmured under her breath. And weary though she was she would have laughed at the scene before her, only she remembered there was a sick woman somewhere, and she had to find her quickly.
Three doors led out of this room, but instinct guiding her she opened the right one first, and walked into a stuffy chamber, the closeness of which seemed almost to choke her, coming as she did from the sweet fresh air of the forest.
A woman with a flushed face and tumbled grey hair lay on the bed, moaning and muttering. She took no notice when Nell bent over and spoke to her, but only moaned and muttered as before.
“She is delirious, that is what she is,” murmured Nell, pronouncing the long word with the careful satisfaction which she always seemed to derive from anything which came out of her much-studied dictionary. “Well, the other room must wait, and I’ll see to her first.”
Years before, when she was a little girl of eleven, she had helped to take care of her sick and dying father, so she was not so much at a loss, as some girls might have been, if thrust suddenly into a sick-room.
“COME RIGHT IN, WILL YOU, PLEASE, MISS?”