at she had almost forgotten to wave a last
good-bye to Miss Unity at the window.

"Well, it was natural, I would not have it otherwise," said Miss Unity
to herself as she finished her reflections; "it is right that the child
should love her home best."

But she sighed as she went back to the sitting-room and took up her work
again. Opposite to her was the high-backed chair in which Pennie had
spent so many weary hours, bending with a frown over Kettles' garments.
But the chair was empty, and there was something in the way it stood
which so annoyed Miss Unity that she pushed it up against the wall
almost impatiently. Then her eye fell on a pile of white clothes neatly
folded on a side-table. Pennie had finished them all, and Miss Unity
had promised that she and Nancy should come over and present them to
Kettles before long. From this her thoughts went on to Kettles herself,
and Anchor and Hope Alley. At this moment Betty appeared at the door
with a face full of woe.

"I've just had an accident, Miss," she said.

Betty's accidents usually meant broken china, but this time it was
something worse. She had sprained her wrist badly.

"You must go at once to the doctor, Betty," said Miss Unity, looking
nervously at the swollen member; "and, oh dear me! it's your right one
isn't it?"

"Yes, Miss, worse luck," said Betty.

"We must have someone in," continued Miss Unity still more nervously;
"you ought not to use it, you know, for a long time."

"I don't want no strangers, Miss," said Betty with a darkening face,
"they break more than they make. I can make shift, I daresay, with my
left hand."

"Now you know that's quite out of the question, Betty," said her
mistress, doing her best to speak severely, "you couldn't lift a
saucepan, or even make a bed. You must certainly have someone. Some
nice respectable char-woman."

"There's ne'er a one in the town," said Betty, "as you'd like to have in
the house. I know what they are--a lazy gossiping set."

Miss Unity rose with decision.

"I shall go and ask Mrs Margetts at the College to tell me of someone
trustworthy," she said, "and I do beg, Betty, that you will go at once
to the doctor."

But though she spoke with unusual firmness Miss Unity was inwardly very
much disturbed, and she quite trembled as she put on her bonnet and
started off to see old Nurse. For Betty, like many faithful old
servants, was most difficult to manage sometimes. She had ruled Miss