“Well, so you will be the day after to-morrow,” replied Pennie shortly. She did not like even Ethelwyn to abuse Nearminster, and she was beginning to be just a little tired of hearing so much about London.
Unfortunately for Ethelwyn’s temper the next day was decidedly wet—so wet that even Miss Unity could not get out into the market, and settled herself with a basket of wools for a morning’s work. Through the streaming window-panes the grass in the Close looked very green and the Cathedral very grey; the starlings were industriously pecking at the slugs, and the jackdaws chattered and darted about the tower as usual, but there was not one other living thing to be seen. “Dull, horribly dull!” Ethelwyn thought as she knelt up in the window-seat and pressed her nose against the glass. It was just as bad inside the room; there was Miss Unity’s stiff upright figure, there was her needle going in and out of her canvas, there was the red rose gradually unfolding with every stitch. There was Pennie, bent nearly double over a fairy book, with her elbows on her knees and a frown of interest on her brow. There was nothing to see, nothing to do, no one to talk to. Ethelwyn gaped wearily.
Then her idle glance fell on the clock. Would it always be twelve o’clock that morning? And from that it passed to the Chinese mandarin, which stood close to it. He was a little fellow, with a shining bald head and a small patch of hair on each side of it; his face, which was broad, had no features to speak of, and yet bore an expression of feeble good-nature. Ethelwyn knew that the merest touch would set his head nodding in a helpless manner, and she suddenly felt a great longing to do it. But that was strictly forbidden; no one must touch the mandarin except Miss Unity; and, though she was generally quite willing to make him perform, Ethelwyn did not feel inclined to ask her. She wanted to do it herself. “If she would only go out of the room,” thought the child, “I’d make him wag his head in a minute, whatever Pennie said.”
Curiously enough Bridget appeared at the door just then with a message.
“If you please, ma’am,” she said, “could Cook speak to you in the kitchen about the preserving?”
Now was Ethelwyn’s opportunity, and she lost no time. She went quickly up to the mantel-piece directly Miss Unity closed the door, and touched the mandarin gently on the head.
“Look, Pennie! look!” she cried.
Pennie raised her face from her book with an absent expression, which soon changed to horror as she saw the mandarin wagging his head with foolish solemnity. Ethelwyn stood by delighted.
“I’ll make him go faster,” she said, and raised herself on tiptoe, for the mantel-piece was high.
“Don’t! don’t!” called out Pennie in an agony of alarm; but it was too late. Growing bolder, Ethelwyn gave the mandarin such a sharp tap at the back of his head that he lost his balance and toppled down on the hearth with a horrible crash.