'It's a pleasure to have thee at home again, my girl, for a bit,' he said. And the kind look in his eyes made me feel both cheered and sad together. It was the first day I had been with them at tea-time, for I had got home pretty late the night before. 'And I hope it'll be a longish bit this time,' he went on. I gave a little sigh. 'I'd like to stay a while; but I don't know that it would be good for me to stay very long, father, thank you,' I said. 'I'm young and strong and fit for work, and I'd like to feel I was able to help you and mother if ever the time comes that you're laid by.' 'Please God we'll never need help of that kind, my girl,' said father. 'But it's best to be at work, I know, when one's had a trouble. The day'll maybe come, Martha, when you'll be glad to have saved a little more for a home of your own, after all. So I'd not be the one to stand in your way, a few months hence--nor mother neither--if a good place offers.' 'Thank you, father,' I said again; 'but the only home of my own I'll ever care for will be here--by mother and you.' And so it proved. I little thought how soon father's words about not standing in my way if a nice place offered would be put to the test. I saw the children who were lodging at Mrs. Nutfold's several times in the course of the next week or two. They seemed to have a great fancy for the pine-woods, and from where they lived they could not, to get to them, but pass across the common within sight of our cottage. And once or twice I met them in the village street. Not all of them together--once it was only the two youngest with the nurse; they were waiting at the door of the post-office, which was also the grocer's and the baker's, while she was inside chattering and laughing a deal more than she'd any call to, it seemed to me. (I'm afraid I took a real right-down dislike to that nurse, which isn't a proper thing to do before one has any certain reason for it.) And dear little ladies they looked, though the elder one--that was the middle one of the three--had rather an anxious expression in her face, that struck me. The baby--she was nearly three, but I heard them call her baby--was a little fat bundle of smiles and dimples. I don't think even a cross nurse would have had power to trouble _her_ much.