"Delightfully, Nettie, and I am quite ready for breakfast, and work to follow, for we must begin our preparations for the journey without an hour's delay."
Annette's face flushed and paled as she turned her mother's letter round in her fingers in an absent fashion. Then she said, "I am afraid I can make none. Mamma has written about everyone but me. She must know that I need more than her permission to go with you."
"My dear, I am sorry that you have had a moment's anxiety on that score, which I might have prevented by a word. Your mother and I arranged everything on your behalf when we met at Scarborough. This is for you, Nettie, to meet any minor expenses, and after breakfast we will see what sort of a substitute for the fairy godmother I shall make in providing the more substantial portion of your outfit." Mrs. Worsley handed Annette an envelope addressed in her mother's handwriting, and on opening it she found, to her utter amazement, a ten-pound note.
"For me, aunty? How has mamma spared it? Did she really send it?" asked Annette, half ashamed of her question.
"I saw Mrs. Clifford place the note in the envelope, which she addressed, and then handed to me, for your sole use, my dear, if that is what you mean. And she sent her love, and hoped you would spend it judiciously."
The young face brightened again at these words.
"Mamma is very kind; I did not expect this," she said. "Now I can manage quite nicely; but how disgracefully selfish I am to keep you talking about my concerns when you must be famishing for your breakfast!"
"Not famishing, dear, but with a good healthy appetite to enjoy this tempting breakfast," replied Mrs. Worsley. "But, Nettie, you have not asked whither we are bound when we leave Heydon Hill."
"I thought I was going home with you, aunty."
"Home, in one sense, dear, but not to the one I call my very own. We are going to my brother's."