Vava looked thoughtful. She felt that Stella was in the right about this. 'But they are not private, Stella; they are only furniture, and she meant to be kind, and she has got all this nice breakfast ready. I think she is in the kitchen, for I can hear some one poking the fire. Do let's go and thank her, and please be nice and smile at her, Stella,' Vava begged her.
Stella smiled at this, and it was with smiles on their faces that they picked their way along the passage through packing-cases into the kitchen. But when they opened the door the smiles changed into wild cries of delight, and her English friends would have been surprised if they had seen the way in which the reserved and cold Miss Wharton threw her arms round the neck of the respectable middle-aged servant, who turned and held out her arms to her 'bairns.'
'You thought your old nursie was going to let you keep house all by yourselves, with no one to look after you, did you?' she said, as she smoothed their hair and petted them both as if they were little children.
'Then it was you who unpacked our things? Stella thought some one had been taking a liberty. Stella's dreadfully afraid of people taking liberties with her, nursie,' said Vava.
'And quite right too! Dearie me! if you knew how I've worried at the thought of you two lambs alone in this great city! But it's all right now; I'm here to look after you. And you've very decent neighbours, who know their place, and are very obliging without being forward at all,' said Mrs. Morrison, for she it was.
'Oh I forgot Doreen; I must just go and tell her how glad we are to see nursie. Fancy her never letting it out, for she must have known it, and Mrs. Hackney too!' cried Vava, preparing to rush off as she spoke.
'Hoots, Miss Vava, what can you be thinking of, running off without ever asking your elder sister's leave, and she your guardian and all?' said Mrs. Morrison reprovingly.
'I didn't think.—May I go, Stella?' she said.
'Yes, but don't stay, and thank Mrs. Hackney for ordering the coals and the gasman,' said Stella.
'You'd better say for all she has done, for she met me at the station, and brought me across London herself, or I doubt if I'd ever have got here; it fairly bewildered me,' said their old nurse.