“Speakin’ of laces knottin’,” Amanda continued, “Mary Caroline was the only one of us girls that was inclined to fat, an’ maw a’ways made her let ’em out when she took ’em off, nights, so there’d be no time wasted in the mornin’.”
“It was my boot-lace, Amanda,” milady protested.
“Mebbe ’twas—an’ mebbe ’twasn’t. It’s loosenin’ ’em overnight that counts—both boots an’ stays. An’ so Mary Caroline found—leastways if she didn’t want maw to wallop her for bein’ late—sloth bein’ one of the seven deadly sins maw could not abide. Mary Caroline was a natural temptation to a high-tempered, energetic woman like maw—she bein’ inclined to fat.”
Mrs. Mearely motioned the porridge bowl away with a chill gravity.
“I’d like my toast and eggs now. Of course I do not suppose you mean anything personal, Amanda, by your repeated allusions to your deceased sister’s physique. Nevertheless I may say, without lowering my dignity, that, although I am not thin and—and—er—flat all over like some of Roseborough’s women, I am not fat. I am not even ‘inclined to fat’ as it appears your—er—walloped sister was, according to your description.”
Mrs. Mearely’s attempt to reduce Amanda Frigget, domestic, to a proper sense of her relation toward the mistress of Villa Rose, failed miserably. The haughty eye of the would-be grande dame wavered from that forbidding countenance and weakly sought refuge in the colour-blend of buttered toast with yolk of egg. Alas, she had given Amanda the sort of opportunity which never passed unimproved.
“You’re not fat as compared with some, but you’ve got a general curve to you, which is on’y to be expected in the daughter-of-a-farmer’s figure.” Amanda proceeded, uncompromisingly, to make the Frigget position on curves and non-curves even plainer. “Now Mr. Hibbert Mearely’s sisters, both what married small but choice titles, was so lean an’ aristocratical you could count the ridges in their backbones—on’y you wouldn’t of persoomed that way on born ladies. But look who their father was—an’ Mr. Mearely’s father, too! A perfessor an’ clergy that had his descent from the middle ages of Henery Seven!”
“No wonder Mr. Mearely felt he could afford to be condescendin’,” Jemima put in, as she removed the tea cosy. “But I don’t s’pose he’d ever have set his a’most royal foot onto ploughed an’ harrowed groun’, if he hadn’t of seen you that day in the gate of your father’s farm in Poplars Vale. That’s when he forgot about Henery Seven an’ went back to the soil—a man that was past fifty an’ had seen all the museums of Europe!”
“Strange—strange, indeed!” Mrs. Mearely hissed softly, striking a small silver knife into a butter ball with intent to wound.
Amanda took up the theme.