“Oh, Dorothy, you would not add to our trouble now, when we are so terribly unhappy! I never meant to hurt your feelings by what I said. If you will only go to the Friary and help us to make the dear mother comfortable, I, for one, will be deeply grateful.”
“And you will not talk of wages?” asked Dorothy, mollified by Nan’s sweet, pleading tones.
“Not until we can afford to do so,” returned Nan, hastily, feeling that this was a safe compromise, and that they should be eked out somehow. And then, the stewed pigeons being regarded as a failure, Dorothy consented to remove the supper tray, and the long day was declared at an end.
CHAPTER X.
THE FRIARY.
Oldfield was rather mystified by the Challoners’ movements. There were absolutely three afternoons during which Nan and her sisters were invisible. There was a tennis-party at the Paines’ on one of these days, but at the last minute they had excused themselves. Nan’s prettily-worded note was declared very vague and unsatisfactory, and on the following afternoon there was a regular invasion of the cottage,—Carrie Paine, and two of the Twentyman girls, and Adelaide Sartoris and her young brother Albert. 69
They found Dulce alone, looking very sad and forlorn.
Nan and Phillis had gone down to Hadleigh that morning, she explained in rather a confused way: they were not expected back until the following evening.