Having made up her mind to sell it, she wondered how she could accomplish this feat. She would have not only to sell the ring, but also to buy the cambric and embroidery without anyone knowing anything about it. The secret would lose half its fascination if anybody guessed. Annie thought anxiously for a moment, then an idea came to her. Nan had talked a good deal about her old nurse. Annie was a prime favourite with nurse, who always considered that she owed Annie a good deal for having rescued her darling from the gipsies some years ago. Perhaps nurse would help Annie now; she resolved to go and sound the old woman.
Putting the ring in its morocco case, she opened the baize door which led to the nursery part of the house, and soon found herself in Mrs. Martin's apartments. Mrs. Martin was known by three different appellations: to Hester she was nurse, or nursey, to Sir John Thornton she was Patty, but to the servants and to strangers she was always spoken of as Mrs. Martin. She was extremely punctilious as to the manner in which she was addressed; and now, as Annie entered her room she wondered which of her three titles would best propitiate her.
"Well, my dear, what do you want?" said the old lady, looking up with a pleased smile from her knitting as Annie's pretty head was pushed roguishly round the door. "Oh, come now, Miss Forest; I know your collogueing ways. But you ought to be in bed, my dear, for it's past ten o'clock."
"And so ought you to be in bed, you dear, naughty, old thing," said Annie; "but you know people don't always do what they ought. If going to bed is what I ought to do at the present moment, you ought to do the same, nursey. May I call you nursey?"
"Well, Miss Annie, you're almost like one of the family; but still I'm properly only nurse to my own two bairns—Miss Hetty and Miss Nan."
"And this is a motherless bairn who would like you to be nursey to her," said Annie, seating herself on a low hassock at the old woman's feet and looking into her face.
"Well, and nursey it shall be," said Mrs. Martin. "Eh, but God has given you a very bonny face, my love."
Annie took up one of the horny hands, and rubbed it affectionately against her soft cheek.
"Nurse," she said, "I am quite in trouble. I wonder if I might tell you a secret?"
"Well, dear, if you like to trust me, safe it shall be. Inviolate it shall be kept, Miss Annie, and you know that violet's the colour of truth."