Racey turned to me, his eyes filled with tears.
"Audrey, will the new nurse be like that?"
I turned to Tom.
"Tom," I said, "why do you say such unkind things to Racey?"
Tom nodded his head mysteriously.
"It's not unkinder to Racey than it is to us," he replied. "I'm sure the new nurse will be cross, because I heard Mrs. Partridge say something to Uncle Geoff on the stair to-day about that we should have somebody 'vrezy strict.' And I know that means cross."
"When did you hear that?" I asked.
"'Twas this afternoon. Uncle Geoff hadn't time to come up. He just called out to Mrs. Partridge to ask how we were getting on. And she said in that horrid smiley way she speaks sometimes—'Oh, vrezy well, sir. Much better since their nurse is gone. They need somebody much stricter.' Isn't she horrid, Audrey?"
"Never mind," I said. But that was all I would say. I would not tell the boys all I was feeling or thinking; they could hardly have understood the depth of my anger and wounded pride, though I really don't think it was a very bad kind of pride. I had always been trusted at home. When I was cross or ill-tempered, mother spoke seriously to me, sometimes even sternly, but she seemed to believe that I wanted to be good, and that I had sense to understand things. And now to be spoken of behind my back, and before my face too, as if I was a regularly naughty child who didn't want to be good, and who had to be kept down by strictness, and who wanted to make the boys naughty too—it was more than I could bear or than I would bear.
"Mother told me to make the boys happy," I said to myself, "and I will. I'll write to Pierson—to-night, when nobody can see, I'll write to her."