CHAPTER IX
A Friend in Need

DR. SHAW put Nell down at the gate of the house at Lorimer’s Clearing, but he did not stay to take her in and introduce her, because a man had stopped him five minutes before, begging him to go to an urgent case two miles in another direction.

“That is what comes of being a doctor; a man is the servant of every one, and has not a moment to call his own,” he grumbled, as he urged his horse to a better pace.

“But it must be lovely to help people, and to know how to do things,” Nell said, with a sigh of envy.

“Oh, ignorance is bliss sometimes, I can assure you,” he answered, with a laugh. Then, having arrived at the gate, he got down and helped her to dismount with more courtesy than he was in the habit of showing towards the people who shared his rides.

A bad fit of shyness seized upon Nell as she passed through the gate and walked up to the house.

It was years since she had approached so grand a residence. There were white curtains to the windows, and plants growing in bright red pots, while the door was painted green and the door-frame white.

She stood hesitating a moment, wondering if there were not some humbler entrance at which she could apply for admission, when from the open window came the sound of a child’s wailing cry, and then a pain-wrung voice in fretful complaint.

“Oh, Flossie, do take baby up and keep him quiet, my head is so bad!”

“I will as soon as I can, but I’ve got to take Patsey some broth, and it is such hard work to carry baby about with me,” a tired little voice answered meekly.

Nell drew a quick breath and straightway forgot her shyness. She even forgot to knock at the door, but, pushing it open, marched into the house, dumped her bundle on the nearest chair, and whisking off the black silk cape, said cheerfully⁠—

“I will take the broth to Patsey if you show me which room, then you can look after baby until I come back again.”

The small lame girl, who was warming broth in a saucepan at the stove, faced round in amazement, while a girl lying on the settle by the window, covered up in a rug, lifted her head from the cushion with a start of surprise, and even the baby in the cradle in the corner left off wailing, attracted by the nodding pink roses in the new-comer’s old-fashioned bonnet.

But Nell had no idea of the attention she had attracted. Elbowing the lame girl gently aside, she got possession of the saucepan, and having decided that the broth was warm enough, poured it into the basin which stood on the table, then said brightly⁠—

“Now show me where Patsey is, or can I find him myself?”

“He is in there,” answered Flossie, pointing a small, rather grimy finger in the direction of an open door at the end of the room; then she added with a gasp, “But he doesn’t like strangers.”

“Oh, he will like me,” replied Nell, in a confident tone, making the pink roses nod up and down as she nodded her head; then, carrying the broth, she walked across the kitchen and into the room where Patsey, a freckled-faced boy of twelve years old, was lying in bed.

“Who are you?” he asked in great surprise, attracted as the baby had been by the pink roses which adorned the stranger’s bonnet.

“Oh, just now I’m the broth-woman, and you’ve got to sit up in bed and drink it every drop. Then I may change into the bed-making woman⁠—⁠that is, if any one wants to have a bed made, and after that⁠—⁠well, you just see about drinking this broth, while I think about what I will be next,” she said coaxingly, reading signs of rebellion in Patsey’s eye.

“I don’t like broth,” he whined.

“Call it soup, then, and you know every one likes soup,” she said, with a low merry laugh.

He sat up in bed without further demur, and commenced on the broth, taking it with slow reluctance as if he had no appetite. Then his eyes suddenly brightened, and he exclaimed⁠—

“I know who you are; you are Mrs. Munson’s fairy that Dr. Shaw talked about, and he said he was going to borrow you to come and help us until we all get better.”

Nell coloured high with pleasure, because of the good reputation which had preceded her; then she said laughingly⁠—

“Well, if I’m a fairy, you will have to make haste and get better before I have to go. There are not many flowers left, you know, and the leaves are falling fast, so when they are all gone the fairies have to go too.”

“Where do they go?” demanded Patsey, wrinkling his freckled face into a grin of amusement.

“I don’t know; that is one of the things I shall have to find out. Lie down now, laddie, and I will come back presently to make your bed, only first of all I want to see what I can do for your sister.”

Carrying the empty basin back to the other room, Nell found the girl who had been lying down was sitting up, and holding by one hand to the table.

“Don’t you think that you would feel better if you were in bed?” she asked, in a pitiful tone.

“I dare say I should, but I daren’t give up, because there’s no one else to do anything, except poor little Flossie, and she is lame,” the girl said, lifting her pale face and heavy eyes to look at Nell with wistful entreaty.

“I can do the work now I’ve come. Flossie will show me where to find things, or I can ask Patsey to tell me. He is getting better, by the look of him, and he took all his broth,” Nell said, as she untied and laid aside her bonnet. Then she pulled an apron from her bundle of clothes, and, having tied it on, proceeded to roll up her sleeves in readiness for work.

“It would be lovely to lie down and have no care. I think it is the worry of everything that has made me bad,” said the poor white-faced girl.

“Worry always makes people sick, if they have too much of it,” rejoined Nell. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “You are the other girl, ain’t you?”

“What do you mean?” inquired Gertrude, in surprise.

“I mean, you are the girl who was to have gone and stayed with Mrs. Munson, and didn’t,” explained Nell.

Gertrude frowned, then said, in a petulant tone, “Oh, why am I to be reminded of that miserable business at every turn? Surely other people forget sometimes; and just think what our troubles have been of late!”

“Please forgive me, I did not mean to make you cross. I only wanted to say ‘thank you,’ because you did forget, and so left room for me,” said Nell, in a contrite tone.

“I’m cross all the time now,” admitted Gertrude. “But I can’t help it, and oh, I am so glad you have come; only I’m afraid you won’t be comfortable, and I don’t know where you can sleep.”

“Don’t trouble about me, and it isn’t bedtime yet. Just let me make you comfortable, and then I’ll go and see what I can do for your mother; she is sick, too, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Poor mother! she is just broken-hearted about losing Percy and Arthur, and it makes her seem as if she doesn’t care about anything else,” Gertrude said, with quivering lips.

Nell helped her to get to bed, waiting upon her with so much understanding and skill that Gertrude exclaimed presently, in amazed wonder⁠—

“How kind you are! Where did you learn it all?”

“I don’t know. But I am so sorry for you,” replied Nell, looking rather abashed, but speaking with such evident sincerity, that Gertrude began to think there was some good left in life after all, and a ray of hope stole into her heart.

“Go to mother now, will you, please? I think father is lying down in there too; but you won’t mind, will you? It will be such a comfort to them to know that some one has come to help us.”

Nell went off then to the darkened room at the end of the house, where the mother lay sick with misery and broken hopes. It was such a grand chamber, too, with a flowery paper on the walls, a flowery carpet on the floor, and curtains to the bed, as well as the window. The new-comer stood still on the threshold, quite amazed at so much magnificence, and scarcely liking to walk across the carpet to the bed, through fear of spoiling it with her worn old boots.

Abe Lorimer was not in bed, but sitting in a rocking-chair, looking very ill and wretched.

“Come in,” he said, in his slow, quiet tones, looking at Nell with vague curiosity, as if he wondered who she was, yet did not care very much about the matter at all.

“Who’s that?” demanded a querulous voice from the bed.

Whereupon Nell ventured across the carpet on tiptoe, and stood where Mrs. Lorimer could see her.

“If you please I’ve come to help,” she said, finding it difficult to repress a shiver, for the woman on the bed reminded her in a roundabout fashion of Mrs. Gunnage, and it was a reminder which brought no pleasure with it.

“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Lorimer, surveying Nell with measuring eyes, which took in every detail of her appearance, from the masses of dark, rather untidy hair crowning her head, down to the worn boots, which were her private mortification just then.

“Dr. Shaw brought me over from Mrs. Munson’s place, on the American side,” explained Nell, who was so secretly elated with having realized her ambition in having crossed the frontier, that some of it had to come out in her speech.

“You can stay and help a bit, if Gertrude likes to have you. Have you seen her?” asked Mrs. Lorimer.

“Yes; I’ve just put her to bed. She is ill. I’m afraid she has got the fever, the same as Mrs. Munson had,” Nell said gravely, deciding, with quick intuition, that Mrs. Lorimer needed rousing more than medicine.

“Gertrude bad! Whatever shall we do? Abe, do you hear, or can’t you rouse yourself?” she said, lifting herself on her pillow to look at the man, who sat leaning back in the rocking-chair.

“Hush! don’t bother him, he looks so bad,” Nell whispered. “Do you think, if I made the other room comfortable, you could get up for an hour or two and sit by the fire? I could manage the others so much better if you were up. There would be nothing for you to do, only to lean back in a rocking-chair and be comfortable.”

“I don’t know if I could sit up. I’ll try. Oh dear! there never seems any chance for me to be ill in peace,” sighed the poor harassed woman, then shed a rain of self-pitying tears.

Nell did not stay to condole with her, but hurried back to the family sitting-room, where Flossie was doing her best with the baby, a lusty young gentleman of sixteen or seventeen months, while another boy, of perhaps four or five years, had just come in from somewhere with some hens’ eggs in a basket, which he held up in triumph for his sister to see.

“Oh, Teddy, what a nice lot! Where did you find them?” cried Flossie, excitedly.

But Teddy, overawed by the sight of a stranger, merely put his finger in his mouth, drooped his head shyly to one side, and said nothing.

The sun was shining so brightly that Nell had a sudden inspiration.

“Have you a little cart to draw the baby about in? Wouldn’t you like to go out in the sunshine for awhile, dear?” she asked. Then, struck by the paleness of Flossie’s face, she added hastily, “Or are you too tired?”

“I’m not too tired to go out; I’d love to go, but won’t you want me to help?” Flossie asked wistfully.

So much help had been required from her lately that life had become a rather wearisome business.

“I think I can manage. Don’t go out of sight of the door, then I can call you if I want to know anything,” Nell said, as she wrapped Master Baby in the first shawl which came handy, while Teddy ran to bring the little cart, which had served all the young Lorimers in turn.

For the next hour Nell was as busy as she could be. She swept and tidied the sitting-room, and put the fire into cheerful burning order; then, wrapping Mrs. Lorimer in a few loose easy garments, she helped her out to the sitting-room, and put her into the most comfortable chair by the fire. That done, she went back to the bedroom, made the bed, and tried to persuade Abe to lie down upon it.

But he only shook his head, saying that he would rather be left alone, so she had to go away hoping that he would change his mind later.

There was much to be done with such a houseful of invalids, and the day wore to evening without Nell realizing how time had flown. Then the hired man, who had been helping Abe Lorimer since the deaths of the two boys, came in for the pail before going to milk the cows, and she at once applied to him for help.

“Mr. Lorimer is ill. I can’t persuade him to go to bed, and every hour he is staying up now will make a day’s difference in his getting better, only of course he’s too sick to know that, or he’d get into bed as quickly as he could. Can’t you go and persuade him? You might even help him to undress.”

The hired man, who was fresh out from England, and had been an assistant in a chemist’s shop before coming West as a farm labourer, promised to do what he could, and disappeared into the bedroom. Nell shuddered to think of his heavy, dirty boots on that flowery carpet, but there was no help for it, for she had not liked to ask him to remove them, and he probably had not thought anything about the matter.

He was a long time gone, and when he came back, he announced that he had succeeded in getting Mr. Lorimer into bed, but believed him to be very ill indeed.

“Some one ought to sit up with him to-night,” said the young man, as he took the pail and went out to milk the cows.

“I wonder what we shall do?” said Nell to Flossie, when later the little girl came in with the baby, while Teddy dragged the baby-cart away to the wood-shed. “Does the hired man sleep in the house? What is his name? And is he any good?”

“What a lot of questions! I can’t answer them all at a gulp,” Flossie said, with a quavering laugh. “His name is George Miller, he sleeps in the loft, and he is so kind that I just love him,” she cried with enthusiasm, but added, with a grave shake of her head, “I’m afraid he does not know much about farm work.”

“What he doesn’t know he will have to find out then, somehow,” Nell said rather grimly, for she did not know much of farm work herself; and she could have wept because of her own ignorance, as she looked about the house and the dairy, and thought of all the work which wanted doing, but must, for the present, be neglected, because of her want of knowledge.

“But I can tell George lots of things, and mother can tell him too,” Flossie said confidently. Then she showed Nell how to get the separator ready for the evening milk to be passed through, told her where the cream would have to go, and generally instructed her in the first principles of dairy management.

Mrs. Lorimer was much better that evening, and declared herself quite equal to looking after her husband through the night, which was a great comfort to them all.

George Miller went off early to his night’s rest in the loft, after volunteering to sit up if he were needed, and when he was gone, Nell was able to make her arrangements for the night.

There were only two downstairs bedrooms at Lorimer’s; but there was a small, very smart best parlour, and in this a bed had been placed, on which Gertrude was lying.

Nell fairly held her breath when she had leisure to examine the splendours of this apartment, which, however, had a close fusty smell that half choked her, accustomed as she was to fresh air in unlimited quantities. There was a looking-glass over the mantel-shelf which was festooned with green tissue paper. Stiffly starched antimacassars hung over every chair-back, one table had a bright red cloth, and another had a green one, while the vases on the mantelpiece were blue. It was very grand, of course; but, on the whole, she felt more at home in the family sitting-room, which was also dining-room, kitchen, and scullery rolled into one.

Gertrude’s bed stood against the wall on the side farthest from the window, and by pushing the table with the green cloth farther into the corner, Nell decided that she could get a very good night’s rest lying on the rug in the middle of the room, and could look after Gertrude at the same time.

Flossie and the baby slept for that night in a bed standing in Patsey’s room, while Teddy curled down in Patsey’s bed, sleeping all night rolled up in a tight little ball like a kitten. Nell went in to look at them once or twice, and was so charmed with their peaceful sleeping faces that she could have lingered looking, forgetful of her own need of rest. But Gertrude’s moaning drew her back each time she went away, and kept her awake a great part of the night as well.

“So many children, I can’t take care of them all; so much work, mother, I can’t get it done!” muttered the sick girl, over and over, as the weary hours went by, until at last, despairing of sleep, Nell rose from her hard bed on the floor, and sat down on one of the smart chairs to wait for daylight, when active work must begin again.

“Dear, dear, poor girl; how it all must have worried her!” said Nell to herself, as she listened to Gertrude’s distressful plaint. “Now, I should just love to have a lot of people of my own like this. If only the four in the other room were my brothers and sister, I should be so happy, that there would seem nothing in life left to wish for. What a puzzle life is! Here is the other girl, broken down and sick, because she has got too many helpless folks to look after, while I am just about breaking my heart because I’ve no one to love or care for. I hope they’ll be obliged to keep me here for ever so long, then I can make-believe they are all my own people, especially Flossie and the baby.”

Nell’s thoughts merged into dreams at this point, so slipping and swaying, drooping forward and recovering herself, she dozed and waked, then dozed again in fitful unrestful slumber, until the cocks began to crow shrilly, and she heard George Miller, the hired man, come creeping with slow, cautious steps down from the loft chamber overhead.

“Time to get up now,” she said to herself, with a little laugh of amusement, as she rose from the chair and stretched her weary limbs; then going out to the kitchen, she plunged her face into a bowl of cold water, and so prepared for a day of toil.

CHAPTER X
To Fill the Breach

THE leaves had all fallen, and been hidden inches deep under the first snow of the season; but Nell was still at Lorimer’s Clearing, working at all sorts of tasks, and striving with all her might to lighten the heavy burdens resting on the household.

Patsey was well again, and getting into mischief as often as possible. But as he went to school every day, his opportunities for mischief at home were rather limited.

Mrs. Lorimer was also well⁠—⁠at least she said so, but there was a broken, crushed look about her, as if life had lost its zest and charm. Very hard to please Nell found her, a grudging nature which would accept service, but give no love in return; so silent, too, that whole days would pass in which she spoke⁠—⁠only to complain.

The coming of the first snow found Abe Lorimer only able to leave his bed and creep out to sit in the big chair by the stove, while Gertrude was not even able to do that.

The doctor did not come very often. Mrs. Lorimer told him not to, declaring that it was as much as they could do to buy food for such a big household, without piling up a long doctor’s bill as well.

“But I should come all the same, if I thought there was any chance of their pulling up any the quicker,” Dr. Shaw said confidentially to Nell. “There are some cures that only Nature can work, and she is a very slow physician. However, time does wonders, and Gertrude will be sound enough again some day, but I have my doubts about the father.”

So Nell stayed on doing the work of the house while Mrs. Lorimer looked after the invalids. Patsey slept with George Miller in the loft, so that Nell could share the children’s room, but Gertrude still lay in the smart best parlour.

Washing, baking, sweeping, scrubbing, the days passed like a dream to Nell, and she was happier than she had been in all the years since her father died. At last she had love enough to satisfy her, for the children were devoted to her, and the big fat baby, who was so slow in learning to walk, always preferring other people’s feet to his own, had struck up a violent friendship with Nell, and thought there was no pleasure in life equal to riding round on her back, while she swept, dusted, and did many other similar household tasks with the child clinging to her shoulders.

She would have been happy enough to stay on indefinitely, working for her board, her only wages being love. But she was quick to see that Mrs. Lorimer would be glad to get her out of the house, and as soon as Gertrude could get up there would no longer be any excuse for her remaining at Lorimer’s Clearing.

The thought of the future worried her a great deal in the quiet nights, when the children were all sleeping round her, and she had nothing to do save lie still puzzling out the problem which loomed every day so much nearer to her.

It was dead of winter; the sickness which had been so prevalent in the neighbourhood had entirely disappeared, with the exception of the two cases at Lorimer’s Clearing. Nell had ventured to ask Dr. Shaw one day if he knew of work which she could go to next, but he only shook his head, and told her to be content where she was, for no one needed her so badly as the Lorimers.

But she was very sensitive, and very proud too, and the thought of being where she was not wanted made a misery for her which tormented all day long.

At last Gertrude was able to leave her room, and to creep feebly about the house. Then Mrs. Lorimer spoke plainly to Nell, not with the thankful gratitude which she ought to have shown, but with the brutal directness of one who has no consideration for anything outside her own narrow circle of interest.

Nell had been out-of-doors, hanging the week’s wash up to dry, in a cutting wind which rushed down from snow-covered mountain tops and howled through the valleys. Coming in, numbed and trembling from exposure to the bitter cold, she said, with a brave attempt at cheerfulness⁠—

“There! the hanging-out is done for this week, and I hope by the time next Monday comes the weather will be warmer.”

“Perhaps you won’t be here then, so it won’t matter to you whether it is cold or not,” Mrs. Lorimer said, going on with her sewing, and never glancing at Nell, who turned very pale, and winced as if some one had struck her a blow.

She was only pale for a moment, though; then her colour came back with a rush, and she asked, in a tone which she vainly tried to keep steady⁠—

“How soon do you wish me to go?”

Mrs. Lorimer looked up then, scanning the girl’s face with a cold gaze.

“You can suit yourself about that; I don’t mind whether it is this week or next. I’m not denying that you’ve worked hard, and done your best for us all round. But we have had heavy expenses since harvest, so even an extra mouth to feed is a consideration, and I’m bound to cut down expenses where I can.”

Nell drew a long breath and set her teeth hard, then turned away without a word. But there was hot revolt in her heart all the same, and a wild protest against the bitter injustice of Mrs. Lorimer’s treatment.

“Why won’t people be kind to me?” she moaned under her breath, as she scrubbed out the children’s bedroom with the hot soapsuds left over from washing, and a few salt tears blinded her eyes, then dropped on to the wet floor.

Her grandfather had gone away, leaving her to face the world as best she might. Mrs. Munson had been glad to get rid of her because of the expense of her board, and now Mrs. Lorimer, for whom she had toiled so hard, was simply telling her to go.

Nell caught her breath in a sudden sob, and then a pair of arms came stealing round her neck, gripping her in such a loving hug that she was nearly choked.

“Nell, dear Nell, I heard all that mother said just now, and it has made me feel so bad that I don’t know what to do. But don’t judge her too hardly, for the deaths of Percy and Arthur seem to have changed her entirely. I have to keep telling myself that all the time, for very often I am tempted to wonder if she has left off loving me,” said Gertrude, whose face was pale and drawn, her eyes red with weeping.

Nell choked back another sob. “I wouldn’t mind so much if I had anywhere else to go. But, being winter, it is hard to find work. There isn’t much out-of-doors just now that a girl can do, and there are women enough about here for all the indoor work, now that the sickness has all gone,” she said, in a worried tone.

“You must not go⁠—⁠you must stay here with us,” answered Gertrude, impulsively.

“I can’t⁠—⁠not a day longer than I can help, that is⁠—⁠for your mother says my keep is a consideration; and oh, Gertrude, it is just awful to be beholden to charity for your food!” Nell said vehemently; and then she scrubbed a section of the floor with tremendous vigour.

Gertrude laughed in a weak, mirthless fashion. “Charity, did you say? Why, Nell, has it never occurred to you how tremendously indebted we are to you? Apart from the loving-kindness you have shown to us all, and which no money could ever pay for, the actual work you have done should have earned you a considerable salary anywhere else. Why, at Bratley, where I am telegraph clerk, a woman would charge half a dollar a day, and then not do half the work that you do. Oh, I know; and I will tell mother just what I think about it all. I should have gone to her then, and said just everything that was in my mind, only father came in, looking so worn and sad that I had no heart nor courage left to make a scene.”

“Gertrude, don’t say anything to her at all about it,” implored Nell, whose misery had been effectually routed by this sweet sympathy and championship. “I don’t mind half so much now I know that you feel sorry I’ve got to go. Only, just at first, it seemed as if nobody cared what became of me, and I felt so dreadfully lonely and outside of everything.”

“Poor Nell! and yet you are not outside at all, if only you knew it,” murmured Gertrude. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she went on, “I’m going to tell you something now that seems too sacred to put into speech, only perhaps you will feel better if you know. Always, when I was lying in bed in the parlour, I could hear what any one was saying in father’s room, and every night when he was keeping his bed too, I could hear him saying his prayers. You know what a quiet, slow-of-speech man he is⁠—⁠but when he is praying it is so different⁠—⁠and it became a positive comfort to me to hear him. He used to pray for us all by name, and every night he thanked God for having sent you to help us, and he used to pray so earnestly for you that you might be repaid for your goodness, and that your future might be taken care of, that I am quite sure you won’t be left unprovided for; and if you do go away, it will be to take higher and better work.”

A glow of happiness came into Nell’s face, the trouble of Mrs. Lorimer’s unkindness faded into an unimportant detail, and she said cheerfully⁠—

“Well, I shan’t trouble anymore about it to-day, and by to-morrow, perhaps, things will look different, or I shall see better about what I’ve got to do next.”

But, as it happened, before to-morrow came, she found what it was she could do next, and it came about in this wise. When Patsey came home from school that afternoon he brought with him a letter for Gertrude, which filled her with consternation.

It was from her deputy at the Bratley depot, who wrote that she could hold the post for only two weeks longer, as she had been offered a clerkship in Nelson, a permanent post with a good salary.

“Oh, mother, do you think I could get strong enough in a fortnight to go back to work?” cried Gertrude, dismayed at the thought of losing her position at Bratley.

“I don’t think anything about it, for I know you can’t,” Mrs. Lorimer replied gloomily.

“Oh dear, what shall I do? Every one says the Bratley clerks are sure of promotion, and I had such a clean record, too; now I shall have to resign, and all my previous work and waiting will go for nothing.”

Nell, who was busy at the stove with preparations for supper, turned quickly with an eager question⁠—

“Could I fill the place for you, do you think?”

“But you don’t know anything about telegraphy,” interposed Mrs. Lorimer.

“I do, a little. For four months before father died, after he was too ill to preach, we boarded with Mrs. Chapman, at Poll’s End. Their daughter Sally was the depot operator, and she taught me a lot; I could send and receive messages for her, and I often used to be in her office for hours alone, while she went walking with her friends,” Nell said, a little breathlessly, while she looked from Mrs. Lorimer to Gertrude, and then back again.

“Oh, mother, if only it could be done, how happy I should be!” exclaimed Gertrude, with clasped hands, and an eager look in her eyes.

“I should think it might; there is a fortnight yet, you see, and you could spend that time in coaching Nell up. If she is as quick at telegraphy as she is at other things, she is bound to do.” And as she spoke, Mrs. Lorimer turned to Nell with a strangely softened glance.

“Then I’ll write to-day to say that I will send another deputy in two weeks’ time, and Nell can stay at Bratley until the doctor says that I may go back to my work again,” Gertrude said gleefully.

That night, when Nell was in the dairy doing the last of her work for the evening, Mrs. Lorimer came softly in and stood beside her as she wiped down the shelves, and cleared away the empty pans.

“Nell, will you forgive me for telling you to go this morning?” she said slowly, her voice quivering in spite of her efforts to keep it steady.

“Why, yes, of course,” said Nell, quickly, adding, with a nervous laugh, “I had been so happy here, with such a lot of folks to love, that it was hard work even to think of tearing myself away, though I would have gone sooner if I could have found anywhere to go, or if I had known that I was not needed here.”

Mrs. Lorimer put a shaking hand on her arm. “I’ve had a black, bitter mood on me for a long while past, and I’ve said and done things that a happier person might well be ashamed of. But it took your generous offer to fill Gertrude’s place at Bratley to make me see how really mean I was.”

“Don’t talk about it any more, please; it hurts me,” whispered Nell, turning rather pale, for there was a look in Mrs. Lorimer’s face which frightened her.

“It had better be said out now and done with, then there will be no need to put it into words again. I haven’t been fair to you in my mind ever since you came, and yet at every turn you have given me good for evil. That is what has made me come to you now to say straight out that I’ve been wrong, and to ask forgiveness.”

Nell dropped her dish-cloth, and, with a sudden impulse, put her arms round the cold, unresponsive woman in an affectionate hug.

“You are not to say another word, do you hear? Or, if you do, I’ll⁠—⁠I’ll⁠—⁠let me see, what will I do? Oh, I’ll go to bed before my work is done, and I won’t learn to be a telegraph operator, so there!”

The effect of these threats was rather diminished by the merry laugh that accompanied them.

There was an unwonted moisture in Mrs. Lorimer’s eyes as she turned away. She was not a woman given to tears, or to laughter, or to any other sort of emotion, but there were strange depths in her character that few people even guessed at, and Nell’s forbearance and generosity had moved her mightily.

They were busy days which followed. Nell rose early, and worked at household tasks until Gertrude was able to leave her room. Then the two spent a couple of hours busy with rule books and a dummy sounder. It might have been as puzzling as Greek to Nell but for her remembrance of the instruction given her by Sally Chapman. Young as she was, she had been quite a skilful operator then, and it took only a little effort to bring it all back.

One day, before the fortnight was up, Abe Lorimer took her over to Nine Springs in the morning, and left her there until the evening, in the telegraph office at the depot, where the operator, a merry-faced girl of twenty, let her send and receive the messages as they came in, telling her that, with practice, she would make a very good operator indeed.

It was raining fast when Abe Lorimer drove to Nine Springs to fetch her home that night, while the melting snow gave a raw coldness to the atmosphere that was dismal and depressing.

But Nell was too happy for the weather to have any effect upon her, and it seemed to her, as the horses splashed along through the mud and the slush, that she had nothing in the world left to wish for, unless, indeed, it was, that she might be able to restore to Mr. Bronson the thirty dollars which lay such a heavy burden upon her heart.

Her own two dollars, which Mrs. Munson had given her, had gone to buy her a pair of boots. But Abe Lorimer had given her five dollars that morning, so she had money of her own again.

There had been additions to her wardrobe, too, which filled her with profound satisfaction. A long brown coat of Gertrude’s had been bestowed upon her, and Mrs. Lorimer, who was clever with her needle, had made a little brown cloth cap to match it; while Patsey had shot a pheasant in the top pasture, bringing home the wings as a special adornment for the brown hat.

The black silk cape had been made into a blouse for best occasions, the blue merino had been altered into a more youthful shape, and Nell surveyed her improved appearance in the looking-glass with an amazement which was comical in the extreme.

“Oh, what a difference clothes do make!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t only the outside look of them, it is the inside feel. I’m not Nell any more when I’ve these things on; I’m Eleanor Hamblyn, or perhaps Miss Hamblyn, which is grander still.”

“What nonsense! You will always be Nell to us, even if you are dressed up in silk velvet and diamonds, with lace frills,” laughed Gertrude, who had been assisting at the transformation scene. Then she asked gently, “Haven’t you ever had pretty, or even suitable, clothes before?”

“I don’t know; I suppose not, or at least, I never looked pretty in them. You see, my mother died when I was so very small, and my father did not know much about clothes, though everyone said he preached beautiful sermons.”

“But afterwards⁠—⁠for you say your father died ever so long ago⁠—⁠wasn’t there anyone to see that you had a nice frock once in a while?” Gertrude persisted, with natural girlish curiosity about Nell’s past.

“It was worse and worse afterwards; for granfer not merely didn’t know about what sort of clothes a girl ought to wear, he didn’t care,” she answered bitterly. Then she abruptly changed the conversation, for, mindful of her grandfather’s caution, she never talked of her life at the Lone House, and was extremely reticent upon the subject of her immediate past.

She often thought of Joe Gunnage’s errand to fetch the Canadian police to inspect the find at the Lone House. But she had not dared to ask any questions, or set on foot inquiries concerning it, through fear lest it should in any way harm her grandfather.

So she hid the past as carefully as she could, comforting herself that now she was on Canadian soil she was safe from any reminders of that old bad time. But it was only hidden, not forgotten, after all.

CHAPTER XI
The Recognition of Mrs. Nichols

NELL stepped off the little platform at the rear of the cars with a dazed sensation of utter unreality all about her.

Only once before, since she could remember, had she ridden in a train, and that was more than a year before her father died.

Now it seemed to her that she had been whirling along for days, weeks⁠—⁠or was it years since Abe Lorimer had put her on the cars at Nine Springs?

“This morning, of course, at nine o’clock, and now it is nearly four o’clock; and oh, I wonder if the baby misses me very much, and what they are all doing at home?” she sighed to herself, feeling strangely desolate and forlorn, as she stood beside the small box containing her belongings, and looked at the towering hills and gloomy pine-clothed slopes about Bratley.

Then a stout woman, with a shawl over her head, came through a small wicket gate by the side of the track, and, advancing straight towards Nell, asked in a rather wheezy tone⁠—

“Are you Miss Lorimer’s new deputy?”

“Yes,” replied Nell, with a sudden terror lest she should be found wanting in some unexpected place, and the fear made her feel for the moment like an interloper, or an impostor, until she remembered the words of the merry, good-natured operator at Nine Springs; then her courage came back, and she was able to smile at Mrs. Nichols, whom she recognized by her appalling squint, according to the description given by Gertrude.

“Well, I’m Mrs. Nichols. You’ve got to board with me, and I’ll make you as comfortable as I can, though, between you and me, I’m getting more than a little tired of deputies, and I’d give a good deal to have Miss Lorimer back again, bless her kind little heart. How is she now, poor lamb?”

“She is getting stronger every day now, and the doctor says she will be able to come back directly the winter is over,” Nell replied cheerfully.

Now there was some one to greet her, she did not feel quite so desolate and forlorn.

“Well, it ain’t over yet by a long way,” sighed the stout woman, “and I can only hope you will not be so faddy in your food as the deputy who is leaving. What I’ve had to bear with that young woman’s appetite these weeks past no one but myself can ever understand. She can’t, or she won’t, eat potatoes, nor turnips, nor carrots; she turns up her snubby nose at leek pie and Irish stew, and as for a bit of pudding, she won’t touch it. All her cry is for new-laid eggs, bread and butter, toasted cheese, and such like. Just think what that means to a poor widow woman, with butter at twenty-five cents a pound, and new-laid eggs at five cents apiece.”

“As dear as that, are they? Well, it is good for the people that have got them to sell, but we will live on potatoes, Irish stews, and that sort of thing, until butter and eggs get cheaper,” replied Nell, with a smile.

“Ah, you are one of Miss Lorimer’s sort, I can see, only you have got a stronger will and more purpose. But you can’t have a kinder heart; I will say that for her. But come along, my dear, and I will get you a nice early cup of tea, for you must want it after a long day of knocking about on the cars,” said Mrs. Nichols, who was a fairly shrewd reader of human nature, and had taken the measure of Nell’s stronger character at the first glance.

“Is this the office? Would you mind if I went in and had a look round first? I’m not very hungry, but I do want to get used to things, and the other deputy goes away to-night, I believe,” said Nell, who was in secret terribly afraid of her new responsibilities, and anxious to reassure herself on the subject of her own capability.

“Yes, that is the office, and Miss Simpson goes away by the eight-o’clock cars, and the office shuts down then for the night,” explained Mrs. Nichols.

“Would you mind, then, if I didn’t come in until after eight o’clock? I want to have as much time to get used to things as I can,” Nell said nervously.

“Do just as you like, my dear. I might as well step in and introduce you to Miss Simpson, then she will treat you properly. Let me see, what is your name⁠—⁠Miss Hammond?”

“No; Hamblyn, Eleanor Hamblyn,” explained Nell; whereat a puzzled look came over the face of Mrs. Nichols, and she treated Nell to a look of the keenest scrutiny, then marched into the dingy little telegraph office, and promptly introduced her to the dyspeptic-looking girl who had been acting as Gertrude’s deputy for so long.

Miss Simpson chose to be very affable, greeted Nell warmly, and declared herself utterly thankful that she was going to leave a dead-alive hole like Bratley.

“I never saw such a place; not a solitary individual to talk to, except the miners that go backwards and forwards to Camp’s Gulch and Roseneath, and they are a mixed lot, I can tell you,” Miss Simpson said, with a toss of her head, and an air of knowing a great deal on all sorts of subjects.

“But the work, is that very heavy?” asked Nell, who was not interested in this aspect of the drawbacks of Bratley. “I mean, does it come with a great rush at certain times of the day?”

“Oh no, there is never a rush of any sort; I wish there were, if only for the sake of keeping one in practice. I’m a twenty-five-word operator myself, and ought to have been promoted long ago, instead of which I have just had to hang round, doing deputy work while waiting for my chance. An eighteen-word operator would manage very well here; what do you scale?”

“I can do twenty words comfortably,” replied Nell, modestly; then added, with deprecating candour, “but I’m not on the list yet, so I can only do deputy work.”

“Get yourself put on the list, then, the very first time the inspector comes this way; he’ll be glad enough to get a twenty-word operator, I can tell you, for some of the beginners are a fearfully slow lot.”

Nell began to feel reassured, and when, a few minutes later, the clicking call of the sounder gave warning of a message coming, she took her place at the table and wrote the words down as they came through.