“What’s the good of your saying those horrid things to me,” replied Leila, almost in tears. “You’d better say them to Dads.”
To this there was no response. Even Chrissie’s audacity would have failed her at such an idea.
Notwithstanding their mother’s continued cheerfulness, and Nurse’s assurances that they were not going to live in so poor a place as Jasper’s “quite nice and clean” row of houses, the imaginations of both little girls had been running riot, almost without their knowing it, on the subject of their new home, and on the whole they were rather pleasantly surprised when the day came for the move to it.
It was, of course, at a considerable distance from the first-rate part of the West End where they had hitherto lived, and as the rumbling four-wheeler made its slow way along, it seemed to Chrissie, with the boxes outside and packages inside, as if all that had happened in the last few weeks must be a dream, and that they were on their way to King’s Cross Station, to travel down for one of their happy visits to Fareham!
“Doesn’t it seem just like that?” she said to the others. “You know we’ve often gone with Nurse and Jap in a four-wheeler, when Daddy and Mummy were in the carriage.”
Leila gave a little shiver.
“Don’t, Chrissie,” she exclaimed. “It only makes things worse thinking of it all like that.”
Jasper slipped his hand into hers.
“Pr’aps we’ll be very happy in the new house,” he said. “I’d not mind if only Nursie was going to stay.”
For, alas! Nurse was only to be a few days longer with them—“just to see you a little bit settled,” she had pleaded with Mrs Fortescue. Her remaining permanently would have been impossible in the changed circumstances of the family, and as she was looking forward to being married in two or three years, it was of importance for her to save what she could of her wages. But she had done all in her power to help; it was a cousin of hers who was one of the two servants which were all Mrs Fortescue could afford to have, and she had privately begged this girl to be very patient with the young ladies if they were sometimes troublesome and thoughtless.