"Common people!" It was Nurse who here spoke. She was sitting by the window at needlework, doing her best to catch the receding winter daylight. "I should just think they are not indeed," said she. "Mrs. Russell, the lady who has taken Rose Cottage, used to be so rich that she could have curled her hair in banknotes if she had chosen to do so."
If Nurse had wished to create a sensation, she had succeeded. Four pairs of eyes greeted hers with excited interest. It was little seven-year-old Marcia, however, who first spoke—
"Oh, how funny!" she cried. "Fancy curling your hair in banknotes. Do people ever do such things, Nurse?"
"Of course not, you little silly!" cried Gertie, with the wisdom of ten years. "Be quiet, and let your elders talk."
Little Marcia, thus snubbed, relapsed for a while into silence.
"What made the old lady poor, Nurse?" asked Kenneth. "She must be jolly hard-up to take a place like Rose Cottage."
"She lost her money in a big bank smash," replied Nurse; "and since that time she's been so proud and unsociable she won't have anything to do with anybody. My sister used to be her maid; that's how I know."
"I wonder if she'll let the little girl be friends with us," said Marcia, with a wistful note in her voice.
"I don't suppose she will. Poor little motherless Ella!" Here Nurse sighed and looked very sympathetic. "She has rather a hard time of it, I should fancy."
"What about her father?" questioned Rupert.