ask her for it as
soon as ever she went back to school. Mrs. Willis was a person who never
forgot: big things and small things alike found a place in her memory;
but long before then Annie would, of course, have the ring in her
possession.

Having made up her mind to sell it, she wondered how she could
accomplish this feat. She would have not only to sell the ring, but also
to buy the cambric and embroidery without anyone knowing anything about
it. The secret would lose half its fascination if anybody guessed. Annie
thought anxiously for a moment, then an idea came to her. Nan had talked
a good deal about her old nurse. Annie was a prime favourite with nurse,
who always considered that she owed Annie a good deal for having rescued
her darling from the gipsies some years ago. Perhaps nurse would help
Annie now; she resolved to go and sound the old woman.

Putting the ring in its morocco case, she opened the baize door which
led to the nursery part of the house, and soon found herself in Mrs.
Martin's apartments. Mrs. Martin was known by three different
appellations: to Hester she was nurse, or nursey, to Sir John Thornton
she was Patty, but to the servants and to strangers she was always
spoken of as Mrs. Martin. She was extremely punctilious as to the manner
in which she was addressed; and now, as Annie entered her room she
wondered which of her three titles would best propitiate her.

"Well, my dear, what do you want?" said the old lady, looking up with a
pleased smile from her knitting as Annie's pretty head was pushed
roguishly round the door. "Oh, come now, Miss Forest; I know your
collogueing ways. But you ought to be in bed, my dear, for it's past ten
o'clock."

"And so ought you to be in bed, you dear, naughty, old thing," said
Annie; "but you know people don't always do what they ought. If going to
bed is what I ought to do at the present moment, you ought to do the
same, nursey. May I call you nursey?"

"Well, Miss Annie, you're almost like one of the family; but still I'm
properly only nurse to my own two bairns--Miss Hetty and Miss Nan."

"And this is a motherless bairn who would like you to be nursey to her,"
said Annie, seating herself on a low hassock at the old woman's feet and
looking into her face.

"Well, and nursey it shall be," said Mrs. Martin. "Eh, but God has given
you a very bonny face, my love."

Annie took up one of the horny hands, and rubbed it affectionately
against her soft cheek