Neither caress nor pinch disturbed Sophy's composure. She sat down on the grass.
"Something's happened to me, too, to-day," she announced.
"Has it, Tots? What is it?" asked Julia, smiling indulgently; the great events in other lives are thus sufficiently acknowledged.
"I've left school, and I'm going to leave Mrs. James's and go and live at the Hall, and be taught to help cook; and when I'm grown up I'm going to be cook." She spoke slowly and weightily, her eyes fixed on Julia's face.
"Well, I call it a shame!" cried Julia, in generous indignation. "Oh, of course it would be all right if they'd treated you properly—I mean, as if they'd meant that from the beginning. But they haven't. You've lived with Mrs. James, I know; but you've been in and out of the Hall all the time, having tea in the drawing-room, and fruit at dessert, and—and so on. And you look like a little lady, and talk like one—almost. I think it's a shame not to give you a better chance. Cook!"
"Don't you think it might be rather nice to be a cook—a good cook?"
"No, I don't," answered the budding Mrs. Siddons, decisively.
"People always talk a great deal about the cook," pleaded Sophy. "Mr. and Mrs. Brownlow are always talking about the cook—and the Rector talks about his cook, too—not always very kindly, though."
"No, it's a shame—and I don't believe it'll happen."
"Yes, it will. Mrs. Brownlow settled it to-day."