The waking so early and the thinking about the sun and the moon and fairy rings and how soon it would be her birthday, began to make Mary rather tired at last. And after a while she fell asleep again without knowing it.
When she woke up for the second time the sun was still shining, though not so brightly as before. And she heard voices talking in the next room, that was the day-nursery. There was a door open between it and the night-nursery where Mary slept.
“Thursday, 18th May,” said one of the voices. “May’s a nice month for a baby, and all the summer before it. ‘Thursday’s child has far to go.’ Perhaps little Missie will marry a hofficer and travel to the Injies. Who can say?”
Then there was a little laugh.
“That’s Old Sarah,” said Mary to herself. Sarah was the housemaid—the upper housemaid, and though she was not very old, the children called her so because her niece, who was also called Sarah, was the nursery-maid. “Little Sarah,” they sometimes called her. Her father was the gardener, and he and her mother lived in a cottage which the children thought the prettiest house in the world. And sometimes they were allowed, for a very great treat, to go there to tea.
It was Little Sarah who was talking to Old Sarah just now. Mary heard her voice, but as she spoke rather low she could not quite tell what the nursery-maid said. She only heard the last words—it was something about “nurse will tell her.”
This put it into Mary’s mind that, though it was quite morning now, she had not seen nurse, and yet she must be up and dressed.
“Nurse,” she called out in her little clear voice. “Nurse, where are you?”
The two Sarahs popped their heads in at the door.
“Are you awake, Miss Mary?” asked Little Sarah.