"But what a lot of trouble!" said Elise Mokey.
"Half a dozen dishes?" returned Kate. "Just three minutes' work; and a warm, fresh supper to make it worth while. Besides rubbing the silver once in four weeks, instead of every Friday. A Yankee kitchen is a labor-saving institution, Mrs. Scherman says."
Down came the waiter again, and down the stairs came Bel. Kate brought two more cups and plates and napkins.
"Now, girls, come and take some tea," she said, drawing up the chairs.
Mrs. Scherman was not strict about "kitchen company." She gave the girls freely to understand that a friend or two happening in now and then to see them, were as welcome to their down-stairs table as her own happeners in were to hers. "I know it is just the cosiness and the worth-while of home and living," she said. "And I'll trust the 'now and then' of it to you."
The hint of reasonable limit, and the word of trust, were better than lock and law.
"How nice this is!" said Mary Pinfall, as Bel put a hot muffin, mellow with sweet butter, upon her plate.
"If Matilda Meane only knew which side—and where—bread was buttered! She's living on 'relief,' yet; and she buys cream-cakes for dinner, and peanuts for tea! But, Bel, what were you up-stairs for? I thought you was queen o' the kitchen!"
"Kate gives me her chance, sometimes. We change about, to make things even. The best of it is in the up-stairs work, and waiting at table is the first-best chance of all. You see, you 'take it in at the pores,' as the man says in the play."
"Tea and oysters?" said Elise, with an exclamatory interrogation.