Kittie's eyes gave a flash; nobody talked to her quite like that. She should like to serve this pretty lady very much.
"Then you will come in the evenings too, and wash up our dishes for us, and help me put the children to bed, or anything I may want?"
Kitty promised, and went home, about the happiest little girl in London. Of course her difficulties were yet to come.
Two whole shillings a week! It seemed a fortune to her.
Cherry and Miss Hobson were as pleased as she could wish, and then she ran down and burst in with her news to her mother.
"Oh, Kittie!" exclaimed Mrs. Blunt, "won't you just have to be good to them dear little children! and to the lady too. I never did see such a wonderful thing, never. But it's like my Lord, that it is!"
When, after a fortnight's work at the Hall, Jem went back to London, he left Meg and Dickie to get two more weeks of fresh air and country milk.
Perhaps to Dickie that month in the country seemed to him afterwards as but one brief day filled with the birds' song.
All day long the two sat out under the apple-trees basking in the sunshine, and listening to the melodious sounds from the Hall farm.