"Nell, Nell! it is wicked of you! I only knew it last night, when we came back. I thought you were at Shorne Mills still! You wrote from there—you said nothing about coming to London."
"That was more than two months ago," said Nell, with a grave smile. "And—and I said nothing because I knew that you—that Lord Wolfer—would want to—to help us. And there was no need—is none."
"No need!" Lady Wolfer looked round the room, listened for a moment to the strains of the piano mingling with the squeals of the children in the house, the yells of those playing in the street, and scented the various odors floating in at the window. "No need! Oh, Nell! isn't it wicked to be so stubborn and so proud? And we knew nothing! We thought that you had enough——"
"So we have," said Nell. "They have been very good to Dick at the works, and he is earning wages, and there—there was some money left—a little—but enough."
"Only enough to permit you to live here! In this prison! Nell, you must let me take you away——"
Nell shook her head, smiling still, but with that "stubborn" expression in her eyes which the other woman remembered.
"And leave Dick!" she said. "No, no! Don't say another word! Call us proud and stiff-necked, if you like—we're not, really—but neither Dick nor I could take anything from any one while we have enough of our own. If we could—if ever we 'run short,' and are in danger of starvation, then——But that won't happen. You don't know how clever Dick is, and how much they think of him at the works! He'll be in directly, with his hands and face all smutty, and famishing for his tea——" She laughed as she fetched another cup. "And you've come just in time. Sit down and leave off staring at me so reproachfully, and tell me all the news."
"No," said Lady Wolfer. "You tell me; yes, tell me all about it, Nell."
Nell smiled as she poured out the tea—the smile which bravely checks the sigh.
"There is not much to tell," she said. "When I got home—to Shorne Mills"—should she never be able to speak the words without a pang?—"I found mamma unwell, very unwell. She was quite changed——"