Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is.
“Charley, do you mean?” says Judy.
“Hey?” from Grandfather Smallweed.
“Charley, do you mean?”
This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as usual at the trivets, cries, “Over the water! Charley over the water, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley!” and becomes quite energetic about it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently recovered his late exertion.
“Ha!” he says when there is silence. “If that’s her name. She eats a deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep.”
Judy, with her brother’s wink, shakes her head and purses up her mouth into no without saying it.
“No?” returns the old man. “Why not?”
“She’d want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less,” says Judy.
“Sure?”