When Nanna came into the room to bid her good-night, she said: "I wonder what her majesty is turning over so seriously in her mind!"
"Her majesty's subject," with special emphasis on the last word, "is thinking sadly of a neglected duty."
"Well!" exclaimed Nanna, laughing, "if the late lamented Mrs. Caudle had an eye for a bloater, my Phebe certainly has an eye for duties!"
"But, Nanna, when I tell you what it is, you will not laugh."
"Yes, I shall. I belong to the Guild of Gladness, and there's something to be glad about in everything,—if you look for it. If even this duty is a very solemn one, I am glad you have at last thought of it."
"I know I can never get you in a corner." And then she told Nanna her thoughts.
"You are quite right," was Nanna's reply, "we have both been to blame; we have thought so much of winning Bessie, we have lost sight of the mother."
"I shall make 'a dash for it,' as Bessie says, to-morrow. And trust for guidance, at the moment as to the right thing to say."
So the very next afternoon she went in to see her neighbour, and found her, of course, as busy—not as a bee, but, rather, as a cloud of dust.
"I wish I had your easy life, Mrs. Waring! I am never done," she exclaimed, sinking down into a chair with a load of freshly mangled towels in her arms. "And as for troubles,—it seems as if my life was made up of them."