I had been standing there about an hour, and had just noticed that the clock pointed to half-past eight, when I heard a light step behind me, and, turning round, there stood the girl I had seen in the garden at home.
Her bright, fresh young face was the first pleasant thing upon which my eyes had rested since I came the night before, and as we stood gazing at each other it seemed to me that I could read sympathy and welcome in her frank smile.
“Good-morning,” she said quietly, and held out her hand, which I was in the act of taking, when a wiry sharp voice cried loudly—
“Hetty! Hetty! where are you?”
“Here, mamma,” cried my visitor.
“Then you’ve no business there,” cried the same voice; and the owner—to wit, the lady I had seen in the garden—came in. “Go back to the parlour directly, miss; and mind this, you are never to come in here at all.”
The girl looked eagerly at me again, nodded, and tripped away, leaving a hopeful feeling behind that I could not explain.
“So you are young Grace,” said the lady, whom I presumed to be Mrs Blakeford, and I gazed wonderingly at her pained wrinkled face and weak-looking, wandering eyes. “Mind this: you are to keep in the office. I won’t have you in my rooms; and Mr Blakeford says you are not to be in the kitchen on account of the neighbours’ remarks. I’m sure I don’t know why we study people who never study us; and I’m pinched enough for money now, without having you thrown on to my housekeeping.”
“Now then, what are you doing there?” cried Mr Blakeford harshly, as he entered in his slippers. “Go and make the tea; what do you want to begin chattering to that boy for about our private affairs?”
Mrs Blakeford muttered something about being always wrong, and turned to go.