Nan was doubtful. She knew her Aunt Helen depended upon her afternoon tea, and missing it to-day might like it earlier. “Suppose I go and ask,” she said.
“Oh, no, I can make both,” returned Miss Phebe hurriedly.
“But why, if it isn’t necessary?”
Miss Phebe murmured something about its not being polite. Her Puritan conscience would not permit her to be slack in even so small a matter, nor must her guests discover her wanting in hospitality, so as Nan saw she would be really distressed if the question were carried further, she gave up all idea of making inquiry, but begged Cousin Phebe to allow her to skim the milk and cut the butter which finally she was permitted to do.
“You must have been up very early to get so much done before you went to the train,” remarked the girl.
“Not much earlier than usual,” was the reply. “I wasn’t up before four.”
Nan stared. Four o’clock! and she had been on the go ever since. “I should think you would be worn to a bone,” she said looking at the wiry spare figure.
Miss Phebe smiled grimly and said, with a little bridling of the head, “We don’t believe in wasting daylight up here.” Surely the ante-bellum days had departed for Cousin Maria Hooper who, in the other room, was telling of the good old times before the war, when she “never raised her hand to do a thing and was carried around on a silver waiter, my dear.”
“If you want to get along you’ve got to work,” said Miss Phebe reading something of Nan’s thought.
“Or else be smart enough to make others work for you,” returned Nan laughing. “Isn’t it a sign of ability to plan what a duller brain executes?”