It was in rather a chastened spirit that Robinette set off to see Mrs. Prettyman. "I've been foolish, I've been imprudent; oh! dear me! I've still so much to learn!" she sighed to herself. "No good is ever done by losing one's temper; it only puts everything wrong. I shall have to try and take Mr. Lavendar's advice. I must be very prudent with Nurse this morning--never show her that I think Aunt de Tracy is in the wrong; just persuade her ever so gently to move to another home, and arrange with her where it is to be."

It is always difficult for an impetuous nature like Robinette's to hold back about anything. She would have liked to run straight into Mrs. Prettyman's room, and, flinging her arms round the old woman's neck, cry out to her that everything was settled. And instead she must come to the point gently, prudently, wisely, "like other people" as she said to herself.

The cottage seemed very still that afternoon, and Robinette knocked twice before she heard the piping old voice cry out to her to come in.

"Why, Nurse dear, where are you? Were you asleep?" Robinette said as she entered, for Mrs. Prettyman was not sitting in the fine new chair. Then she found that the voice answered from the little bedroom off the kitchen, and that the old woman was in bed.

"I ain't ill, so to speak, dear, just weary in me bones," she explained, as Robinette sat down beside her. "And Mrs. Darke, me neighbour, she sez to me, 'You do take the day in bed, Mrs. Prettyman, me dear, an' I'll do your bit of work for 'ee'--so 'ere I be, Missie, right enough."

"I'm afraid you were worried yesterday," said Robinette; "worried about leaving the house."

"I were, Missie, I were," she confessed.

"That's why I came to-day; you must stop worrying, for I've settled all about it. I spoke to my aunt last night, and it's true that you have to leave this house; but now I've come to make arrangements with you about a new one."

The old woman covered her face with her hands and gave a little cry that went straight to Robinette's heart.

"Lor' now, Miss, 'ow am I ever to leave this place where I've been all these years? I thought yesterday as you said 'twas a mistake I'd made."

"But alas, it wasn't altogether a mistake," Robinette had to confess sadly, her eyes filling with tears as she realized how she had only doubled her old friend's disappointment. Then she sat forward and took Mrs. Prettyman's hand in hers.

"Nursie dear," she said, "I don't want you to grieve about leaving the old home, for it isn't an awfully good one; the new one is going to be ever so much better!"

"That's so, I'm sure, dearie, only 'tis _new_," faltered Mrs. Prettyman. "If you're spared to my age, Missie, you'll find as new things scare you."

"Ah, but not a new house, Nursie! Wait till I describe it! Everything strong and firm about it, not shaking in the storms as this one does; nice bright windows to let in all the sunshine; so no more 'rheumatics' and no more tears of pain in your dear old eyes!"

Robinette's voice failed suddenly, for it struck her all in a moment that her glowing description of the new home seemed to have in it something prophetic. That bent little figure beside her, these shaking limbs and dim old eyes,--all this house of life, once so carefully builded, was crumbling again into the dust, and its tenant indeed wanted a new one, quite, quite different! A sob rose in Robinette's throat, but she swallowed it down and went on gaily.

"I've settled about another thing, too; you're to have another plum tree, or life wouldn't be the same thing to you. And you know they can transplant quite big trees now-a-days and make them grow wonderfully. Some one was telling me all about how it is done only a few days ago. They dig them up ever so carefully, and when they put them into the new hole, every tiny root is spread out and laid in the right direction in the ground, and patted and coaxed in, and made firm, and they just catch hold on the soil in the twinkle of an eye. Isn't it marvellous? Well, I'll have a fine new tree planted for you so cleverly that perhaps by next year you'll be having a few plums, who knows? And the next year more plums! And the next year, jam!"

"'Twill be beautiful, sure enough," said the old woman, kindling at last under the description of all these joys. "And do you think, Missie, as the new cottage will really be curing of me rheumatics?"

"Why yes, Nurse. Whoever heard of rheumatism in a dry new house?"

"The house be new, but the rheumatics be old," said Mrs. Prettyman sagely.

"Well, we can't make _you_ entirely new, but we'll do our best. I'm going to enquire about a nice cottage not very far from here; there's plenty of time before this one is sold. It shall be dry and warm and cosy, and you will feel another person in it altogether."

"These new houses be terrible dear, bain't they?" the old woman said anxiously.

"Not a bit; besides that's another matter I want to settle with you, Nursie. I'm going to pay the rent always, and you're going to have a nice little girl to help you with the work, and there will be something paid to you each month, so that you won't have any anxiety."

"Oh, Missie, Missie, whatever be you sayin'? _Me_ never to have no anxiety again!"

"You never shall, if I can help it; old people should never have worries; that's what young people are here for, to look after them and keep them happy."

Mrs. Prettyman lay back on the pillow and gazed at Robinette incredulously; ............