SERVICE.
"THE menagerie! O father, will you?" cried Narcissus. "I do want to see the lions and tigers, and they'll be here such a short time. But mother said you wouldn't think of it."
"Throwing away money on foolery," murmured Mrs. Plunkett.
"The beasts ain't always such fools as men and women, after all," quoth Plunkett. "Anyway, they're worth looking at. I do believe Narcissus has never seen a tiger in her life. There hasn't been a beast show here since I don't know when."
"Since I was so high," Marigold said, putting out her hand. "Narcissus was too little, but I went, and I haven't forgotten. Only there was no elephant that time, and they've got one now—such an enormous creature!"
"Narcissus won't be called by her name at the Parsonage," broke in Mrs. Plunkett. "I know that. It's no name for a servant."
"The name's given, and it can't be ungiven; Narcissus she is, and Narcissus she'll have to be all her life through. If you'd ha' been my wife sixteen years agone, why then she'd have been Betsy or Jane, as like as not. But you wasn't!"
"They 'll call her Betsy or Jane at the Parsonage, you'll see."
"Shouldn't wonder if they didn't do nothing of the sort. Anyway she's going. I've promised, and she's got to go." Then in an undertone to the girls, "All right about the beast show!" And losing no more time, he went off.
"Well, I say it's rubbish, and I don't care who I says it to," observed Mrs. Plunkett. "Sending a girl away for a year, just when she's beginning to be useful. And how I'm to manage—"