it
making no difference, and Richard being pleased, and so forth, as if
I had nothing else to do in the world, and wanted to go back to the
colony! It is simply not my business any longer," cried Nettie, rising
impatiently from her chair--"that is all that can be said. But I shan't
desert you till I deliver you over to my successor, Susan--don't fear."

"Then you don't feel any love for us, Nettie! It was only because you
could not help it. Children, Nettie is going to leave us," said Mrs
Fred, in a lamentable voice.

"Then who is to be instead of Nettie? Oh, look here--I know--it's
Chatham," said the little girl.

"I hate Chatham," said Freddy, with a little shriek. "I shall go where
Nettie goes--all my things are in my box. Nettie is going to take me;
she loves me best of you all. I'll kick Chatham if he touches me."

"Why can't some one tell Nettie she's to go too?" said the eldest boy.
"She's most good of all. What does Nettie want to go away for? But I
don't mind; for we have to do what Nettie tells us, and nobody cares
for Chatham," cried the sweet child, making a triumphant somersault out
of his chair. Nettie stood looking on, without attempting to stop the
tumult which arose. She left them with their mother, after a few minutes,
and went out to breathe the outside air, where at least there was quiet
and freedom. To think as she went out into the red morning sunshine
that her old life was over, made Nettie's head swim with bewildering
giddiness. She went up softly, like a creature in a dream, past St
Roque's, where already the Christmas decorators had begun their pretty
work--that work which, several ages ago, being yesterday, Nettie had
taken the children in to see. Of all things that had happened between
that moment and this, perhaps the impulse of escaping out into the open
air without anything to do, was one of the most miraculous. Insensibly
Nettie's footsteps quickened as she became aware of that extraordinary
fact. The hour, the temperature, the customs of her life, were equally
against such an indulgence. It was a comfort to recollect that, though
everything else in the universe was altered, the family must still have
some dinner, and that it was as easy to think while walking to the
butcher's as while idling and doing nothing. She went up, accordingly,
towards Grange Lane, in a kind of wistful solitude, drifted apart from
her former life, and not yet definitely attached to any other, feeling
as thou