"Yes!" cries Doris, jumping up and clapping her hands; "and, who knows, I may marry a duke yet!"
"Marry a fiddlestick!" snaps Lady Woodhouse; and there the subject drops for the present.
CHAPTER XX.
BECKY.
Just as Lady Woodhouse is about to take her departure two days later, the new domestic, Becky Phips, arrives, accompanied by her "gra'm'ther," who assists in carrying her small box and a mysterious brown paper bag on which much care is lavished by Becky, and which afterwards turns out to contain nothing more nor less than that young person's "best 'at."
Aunt Sophia, who is standing on the steps peering up and down the road in search of the fly, now due, which is to convey her to the station, catches sight of the girl as she goes round to the back entrance, and raising her hands and eyes at the same time turns to Honor, exclaiming—
"Good gracious, child! Where did you pick up such an eccentric-looking piece of goods as that? Did anyone ever see such a remarkable head! My dear Honor, mark my words: that girl will either turn out extraordinarily clever or surprisingly stupid. She could be nothing between the two with a head like that, you know. Let me know, child, which she proves to be. I shall quite look forward to hearing whether she is an unsurpassable treasure, or whether she drives you all to despair and madness by her outrageous stupidity. Ah, here's the fly! That's right. Now, Honor, don't forget. All right, driver." And away goes Aunt Sophia, nodding her head out of the window until a bend in the road hides the fly from view, and the girls go indoors again to interview Becky. Certainly she is a remarkable-looking young person; and many a grave discussion is held as to the phrenological meaning of the enormous bumps on either side of her head. To Becky herself they chiefly mean that not all the bonnet-pins and hair-pins in the world will keep her cap straight; if it is not leaning over too much on one side, it is sure to be on the other. This imparts a rakish sort of air to the girl, which is trying in the extreme to Mrs. Merivale.
At last Dick settles the matter off-hand one day, by announcing once for all that they are the bumps of hunger—the girl proving to have an insatiable appetite, and the consumption of bread, potatoes, and anything in the nature of pudding being truly astonishing—not to say alarming—since her arrival at the Rookery. It does not take Honor long to make up her mind as to what will be the report to her aunt regarding the girl's possible cleverness or stupidity, for she presently developes such an apparently inexhaustible fund of the latter commodity as often to reduce the entire family to the verge of frenzy. There are only two things which Becky appears capable of doing with any regularity or determination, and these are "swilling" the back-yard and letting the kitchen fire go out. Thus little scenes are constantly taking place as follows: Mrs. Merivale expresses a wish to have a cup of tea somewhat earlier than usual. Honor goes into the kitchen. Kettle ostentatiously placed over what was once a fire, but is now a depressing collection of black cold cinders.
Honor—"I thought I told you, Becky, always to have the kettle boiling by three o'clock. Just look at it."
Becky (with cap awry)—"Ain't it boiling, miss? Why, I put it on nigh two hours ago. I'm sure I did!"