“You’re a little goose, Lucy, and you’ve been filling your head with penny novels, I can see,” said she.
But the obligation to a stranger, which she could scarcely doubt she was under, troubled her.
“It is very, very awkward to be thrown out like this in a strange place with nobody to go to for help or advice,” she began; when suddenly a light came into her face, and she sprang up and ran to fetch her travelling bag. “I’d forgotten all about it!” she cried, as she drew out a closed letter directed in an old-fashioned, pointed, feminine hand to “Mrs. Brander, the Vicarage, Rishton.” “The wife of one of the curates at Streatham knows the wife of the vicar here, and gave me a letter of introduction to her. I will go and call upon her at once. If she is the least nice she will help us, and tell us how to treat with these savages.”
Olivia was fastening her mantle, which she had not taken off, and putting on her gloves. Lucy’s round face had grown very long.
“And must I stay here, miss, all by myself?” she asked, dolefully.
Olivia looked at her dubiously.
“I would rather you stayed here, certainly, because, you see, the furniture might come while we were away,” she said at last. “On the other hand, if you are going to frighten yourself into a fit at the scraping of every mouse——”
Lucy drew herself up. She was not really a coward, and this speech put her upon her mettle.
“I’ll stay, Miss Olivia,” she said, resolutely; adding, in a milder voice, “You won’t be very long, will you?”
“Indeed I won’t,” answered her mistress, promptly. “I don’t suppose it takes more than five minutes to go from one end of the village to the other. We saw the church from the cab windows; it’s on the top of the hill. I shall make for that; the Vicarage is sure not to be far off.”