“Well, about nurses, ’ Mrs.’ before a nurse’s name doesn’t soothe a fretful child, nor make her more patient or loving.  It might make her less patient, if she took to wishing the ’ Mrs.’ was real instead of sham; some women are like that, all for marrying.  I dare say,” said Nannie, when going over her experiences, “my face did look blank when I missed all my treasures, but f said nothing, although it was a blow when I thought of all the lovely times you had had with that rocking-horse.  You remember the hole in it?  Well, that was cut out solid because of all the things that were inside that rocking-horse; almost all the things that had been lost for years we found in that horse.  My gold chain, for one thing, to say nothing of other things.  The tail came out, and that is how the things got lost.  The boys, always up to mischief, just popped anything they came across down that hole and put in the tail again, so no one knew anything about it.  Well, then, your father lost something very special, I forget what, and there was a to-do!  And Jane said she believed there was a power of things down that rocking-horse, so we got Jane’s sister’s young man, who was a carpenter, or by way of being, to come and cut out a square block out of the underneath —­ well, the stomach —­ of that horse —­ and then we found things!  Things we had lost for years.  Then we put the block back, and no one would have noticed particularly, not unless they had looked.  Well, that’s what I missed, the rocking-horse, but still I said nothing.  Then we had tea out of new cups, and still I said nothing, because tea-cups will get broken, and you can’t expect young girls to take care of cups like we did.  The kettle-holder was gone!  Then Mrs. David came in.  Oh! she is lovely and like your mother in some ways, —­ the ways of going round and speaking to every one, —­ and she laid her hand on Betty’s head, just as I’ve seen your mother do a hundred times on yours, and that was hard to bear.  Anyhow, it’s a good thing it wasn’t some one else who got Hames.  There ’s that to be thankful for.  It begins with ’ Z,’ you know.”

“Nannie!” I said.

“Z for Zebra,” said Nannie.

When the new nursery was all ready, Nannie was sent for.  A dozen times that day I ran up that narrow staircase, and in the morning I laid the tea to see how it would look, and it looked so pretty that I left it.  At four o’clock the fire was lighted and the kettle was put on to boil.  Nannie drove up in a four wheeler.  I was in the hall to meet her.  She lingered to look at everything.  She went round and round the dining-room, up to the drawing-room, even into the spare room, but no word of nursery.  “Which is my room?” she said.

“It’s upstairs,” I said.  “Won’t you come and look at it?”

“There’s no hurry, is there, miss?”

I could see it was the nursery floor she dreaded.

“Well, there is rather a hurry, Nannie,” I said.  “I am so anxious to see if you like all the house.”