"There's the little girl Miss Pennie was so set on. She could come, for
her mother's about again now, and a decent woman she is, though she's so
badly off."

A month ago the bare idea of having anyone from Anchor and Hope Alley
into her house would have been impossible to Miss Unity; but Pennie had
made her so familiar with the name and affairs of Kettles, and she had
taken so much interest in making her clothes, that it no longer seemed
so strange. Still, what would Betty say? A girl out of Anchor and Hope
Alley, who had never been in a decent house before! It was surely too
bold a step.

"You see, Miss," went on Nurse, "it isn't as if you wanted her to wait
on you, or to open the door or such like. All she's got to do is to
help Betty below stairs, and to make beds, and so on. She'll soon
learn, and I'll be bound she'll answer better than a char-woman."

Miss Unity took her departure with this bold idea becoming more and more
fixed in her mind. There was a great deal in what Nurse had said, if
she could only induce Betty to look at it in the same way; and above all
how delighted Pennie would be, when she next came, to find Kettles not
only wearing the clothes she had made; but actually established in the
house. It all seemed to fit in so well that Miss Unity gathered
courage. She had come out that morning feeling depressed and worried,
and as though everything would go wrong; but now, as she turned into the
Close, wondering how she should best open the subject to Betty, she was
quite stirred and interested.

Betty had come back from the doctor with her arm in a sling. She was to
keep it as still as possible, and on no account to try to use it.

"So you see, Betty," said Miss Unity earnestly, "the importance of
having someone to help you in your work."

"Yes, Miss," said Betty, with suspicion in every feature, and quite
prepared to object to any person her mistress had secured.

"And I have made up my mind," went on Miss Unity, "not to have a
char-woman."

"Ho, indeed, Miss!" said Betty, still suspicious.

"I know you object to them," said her mistress, "and Mrs Margetts
advises me to try a little girl she knows, who lives near here."

If possible she would avoid the mention of Anchor and Hope Alley.

"It's for you to please yourself, Miss," said Betty stiffly.

"Of course it would be an immense advantage to the girl to be under a
competent servant like yourself, for although she's intelligent