"Is it my grandfather you want to see?" she asked him, with that modest self-possession that never deserted her. "Won't you sit down?" she added, drawing a chair forward.
"No, miss, thank you," said Geo shyly; "I can't stop. 'Tain't your grandfather that I come after; I wanted to see the nurse if I could."
"I'm afraid she won't be in this forenoon," said Milly. "but will you leave a message with me? I'll be sure to give it to her as soon as she comes back."
"Well, I hardly know as I can leave a message. The truth is," Geo blurted out suddenly, with a rush of colour into his fair-skinned face, "I want to go and help at the well, and I can't leave mother. I was going to ask if she could come now for a couple of hours and let me go. They are wantin' help badly. I don't seem as if I could stay quiet while them pore chaps are underground, dead or alive; that seem as if we must get at 'em as soon as we can.'
"When do you want to go?" asked Milly, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Now, at once, if I could; but nurse haven't been yet, and there's a lot to see to and do for mother, and I don't ever leave her till she is put comfortable for the day. I've jest run over on the chance of finding nurse; but if she isn't here I s'pose I must jest go back and wait till she come."
He made a step towards the door. Milly glanced at the clock: it was a quarter-past ten.
"I'll come," she said quietly, "when I've finished laying my bread. If you go on, I'll be there in twenty minutes, and I'll wait till nurse comes, and settle with her what can be done."
He muttered some incoherent thanks, but they were, except for the sake of his manners, quite unnecessary. The look of gratitude that he cast on Milly was quite a sufficient expression of thanks, as far as she was concerned. As he went out she returned to her bread-making.
A quarter of an hour later the bread was safe in its earthen pan, with a snowy cloth laid over it; and Milly had washed her hands, turned down her sleeves, set a tray on the table in the parlour, with nurse's glass of milk and some bread and cheese on it, and had gone in next door to tell her lame neighbour where she was to be found, and to ask her to explain her absence to her grandfather if he returned while she was at Mrs. Lummis's, and also to ask nurse directly she had had her luncheon to call in and tell her what to do. Milly had heard quite enough of the relations between Geo and his mother from Nurse Blunt to be quite certain of her sympathy in the sudden impulsive step she had taken; and she felt sure grandfather would raise no insuperable objection now that all available hands were required at the well.