“Let me go. Some one wants to be let in. I dare say it’s Hill.”
“Master Johnny, I beg your pardon,” she said, going back. “Hill ought to know better than to come frightening me at night like this.”
I opened the door, and Miss Timmens walked in: not Hill. The knocking had not been intended to frighten any one, but as a greeting to Mrs. Hill—Miss Timmens having seen her through the glass.
“You know you always were one of the quaking ones, Nanny,” she said, scoffing at the alarm. “I have just got back from Worcester, and thought you’d like to hear that mother’s better.”
“And it is well you are back, Miss Timmens,” I put in. “The school has been in rebellion. Strangers, going by, have taken it for a bear garden.”
“That Maria Lease is just good for nothing,” said Miss Timmens, wrathfully. “When she offered to take my place I knew she’d not be of much use. Yes, sir; it was the thought of the school that brought me back so soon.”
“And mother is really better!” cried Mrs. Hill. “I am so thankful. If she had died and I not able to get over to her, I should never have forgiven myself. How is David?”
“Are you getting straight, Nancy?” asked Miss Timmens, looking round the room, and not noticing the question about David.
“Straight! and only moved in this morning! and me with this ankle!”
Miss Timmens laughed. She was just as capable as her sister was the contrary.