ready. I
think she is in the kitchen, for I can hear some one poking the fire. Do
let's go and thank her, and please be nice and smile at her, Stella,'
Vava begged her.

Stella smiled at this, and it was with smiles on their faces that they
picked their way along the passage through packing-cases into the
kitchen. But when they opened the door the smiles changed into wild
cries of delight, and her English friends would have been surprised if
they had seen the way in which the reserved and cold Miss Wharton threw
her arms round the neck of the respectable middle-aged servant, who
turned and held out her arms to her 'bairns.'

'You thought your old nursie was going to let you keep house all by
yourselves, with no one to look after you, did you?' she said, as she
smoothed their hair and petted them both as if they were little
children.

'Then it was you who unpacked our things? Stella thought some one had
been taking a liberty. Stella's dreadfully afraid of people taking
liberties with her, nursie,' said Vava.

'And quite right too! Dearie me! if you knew how I've worried at the
thought of you two lambs alone in this great city! But it's all right
now; I'm here to look after you. And you've very decent neighbours, who
know their place, and are very obliging without being forward at all,'
said Mrs. Morrison, for she it was.

'Oh I forgot Doreen; I must just go and tell her how glad we are to see
nursie. Fancy her never letting it out, for she must have known it, and
Mrs. Hackney too!' cried Vava, preparing to rush off as she spoke.

'Hoots, Miss Vava, what can you be thinking of, running off without ever
asking your elder sister's leave, and she your guardian and all?' said
Mrs. Morrison reprovingly.

'I didn't think.--May I go, Stella?' she said.

'Yes, but don't stay, and thank Mrs. Hackney for ordering the coals and
the gasman,' said Stella.

'You'd better say for all she has done, for she met me at the station,
and brought me across London herself, or I doubt if I'd ever have got
here; it fairly bewildered me,' said their old nurse.

'When did you come, nursie?' inquired Vava.

'On Wednesday. I wanted to get over the journey and the strangeness of
things before you came, and to get things a bit straight; but I've only
been able to settle the kitchen and your own sitting-room and one
bedroom. I could not take it upon me to interfere with the two young
leddies' rooms, and indeed I did not know where to put