Taking the little saucepan from the fire, and placing it carefully on the hob of home-made bricks by the side of the grate, she waddled from the kitchen along the cool, dark passage to the door of the boys' room. There she softly knocked, and Margaret came out.
"Ho! come into the kitching, miss, I've had sich a turn," Here the good old creature thought it would be "genteel-like" to appear faint, so she tottered and gave a gasp.
"Now, Beffy, don't be an old silly. What is it?"
"Ho, miss, Como've come back."
"No! Where is he?" said Margaret, coming out and quietly closing the door behind her.
"He were in the kitching, miss, a minnut ago. I were standin' over the fire a hottin' up that bought beef-tea, miss, which it do not compare to mine, though I says it as shouldn't. For my best beef-tea, which I'm sure I should make for poor dear Master George, is as stiff as glue when cold, and almost gums the lips together when took hot. I learnt how to make it in England, miss, when I was kitching maid, under a aunt of mine who was cook, at Kepton Park, wheer the Honrabble and Reverent Mr.——"
"Yes, yes, but what about Como?"
"Ho, to be sure; Como, of course, yes, miss. I were a-standin' over the fire a-hottin'——"
"Oh, you've told me that before."
"When in leaps Como as bold as brass, and he jumps up agen me, he do, as though to say like 'Beffling, I'm clemmed.'"