"To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory, briefly.
"There's no binding about it," replied the mistress. "Of course I wouldn't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer than you behave yourself."
"Then, if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst into a passion of tears.
"Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling.
"I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears. "I s'pose I can go to a office."
"And where'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased.
"If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing back and forth to offices from here."
"Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast.
"Yes just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it."
The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, upstairs.