Dump - a Plain Girl by L.T. Meade

We sat on and on in the dusk. After a time Hannah went away. We scarcely noticed her when she got up. She stooped and kissed us, and said, "Poor children! " and it seemed to me as she left the room as though she were our old nurse back again, caring for us as she used to do when we were motherless and too young to see after ourselves. But she went, and she had scarcely disappeared through the door before we forgot her, we were so absorbed waiting for the message which might come to us any moment from upstairs.

Hannah had not been gone ten minutes before we heard a carriage with a pair of horses dash up to the door. It stopped. We heard the muffled thud of the wheels on the thick straw outside, and we heard the door of the carriage being opened, and two men got out. They were not kept waiting an instant at the door. Muriel, our parlour-maid, must have been expecting them. We heard them enter, and they went upstairs quite softly, making little sound on the thick carpets.