Now she remembered her self-control during Robin’s illness, and resolutely she banished her anxiety. There was no doubt some perfectly simple explanation which presently would account to her for their not coming at the tea hour.
“Ma’am!” cried a respectable voice. “Ma-a-am!”
“What is it, Nurse. They haven’t come back?”
Nurse was coming down the path gingerly, with a shawl over her cap.
“No, ma’am. Whatever can have happened? Something’s a-happened, that’s certain.”
“Nonsense, Nurse!”
“But whatever should keep them out till late into the night, ma’am?”
“It’s only a little after six. It isn’t night at all.”
“But the tea, ma’am! And Master Robin’s so regular in his habits. He’ll be fair famished, ma’am, that he will. I——Well, ma’am, if I may say it, I really don’t hold with all this shooting, and sport, and what not for such young children.”
“It’s only just for once, Nurse. Go in now. You’ll catch cold.”