"It looks real nice," said Miss Phosie admiringly. "I'll go stir up the cake. I guess I can get one in before dinner."
"You go help her, Ora," commanded the girl's grandfather. "I guess Phenie can spare you now."
"I did want her to help me make the bed," said Miss Phenie, a round-faced, rather stout woman, who must have been good looking in her youth, but who, like most of the women on the island, had aged early. Those who had not faded had grown heavy and hard featured. Miss Phosie preserved her gentle expression, but exposure and hard work had seamed the delicate skin and turned the slimness of youth to angularity. Miss Phenie loved ease and was not inclined to do more than she must, therefore she had grown stout, but the sparkling prettiness of youth had given place to a certain coldness of eye and sensuousness of mouth which indicated the growth of selfishness. But for the authority of Cap'n Ben Miss Phosie would have been more put upon than she was.
"Go on, Ora," said her grandfather, as the girl hesitated. "If Phosie has two cakes to bake, she'll need two pairs of hands, and I cal'late one woman's enough to make one bed."
So Ora joined Miss Phosie in the kitchen. She, like her younger aunt, was fair-haired and blue-eyed, with the milk-white skin and delicately tinted cheeks of the northern girl. She was but sixteen and was already ambitious to have "a waist you could span." She therefore wore a belt several inches too small for beauty, unaware that such compression was out of fashion. Her hair was arranged in the extremest of pompadours, but, alas! among her possessions she did not count a toothbrush as her innocent mouth only too plainly evidenced. However since most of her companions were no more particular than herself, she did not realize how much her looks suffered because of her neglect.
Miss Phosie looked up with a smile as her niece came in. "Could Phenie spare you?" she asked.
"She had to. Grandpap said I was to help you."
"That's real nice," said Miss Phosie gratefully. "You just cream the butter and sugar together in this bowl and I'll get the eggs. I must get out my pies first. I hope the cake will turn out firstrate so's the boarders will be satisfied."
"I guess they'll have to be," returned Ora with a little toss of her head. "Nobody asked them to come."
"Now Ora, that ain't the right spirit," reproved Miss Phosie. "They'll pay for what they get, and we hadn't ought to take their money without making a proper return. That would be next door to stealing."