A lump came into Nancy’s throat, but she made no reply.
The party went off, carrying a kettle and a tea-basket. Their voices faded away in the distance, and Nancy went up to Augusta.
“They have gone; I have heard them,” cried Augusta. “Now fetch the gardener, and be very, very quick.”
Nancy went downstairs. She raced all over the place, and at last she found Simpson, the very worthy old gardener whom Mrs. Richmond always employed.
“Can you come with a ladder, and can you come at once?” asked the little girl.
“Well now, miss, I am particular busy to-day,” was Simpson’s answer; “but if so be as you want me very bad, why, I’ll do what I can for you, miss. But if it is for that other young lady——”
“Is it for the other young lady, miss?”
“It is for me, because I want to help her,” said Nancy. “She has dropped a bracelet—a gold bangle—into the wistaria which grows up to her window.”
“Oh! I know that wistaria,” said Simpson, with a laugh. “It is a good, steady sort of tree, and afore now it has been made useful. Well, missy, if Miss Augusta has dropped her bangle into the wistaria it can wait till to-night. I need not lug a ladder all that way in the midst of my other work.”
“Oh! she wants you to come now; she does indeed, Simpson.”