Then she rang the bell.
After a minute, someone came bustling down the hall and the door opened, discovering a stout and elderly coloured woman in a tight dress of navy-blue sateen with large white spots. Upon her head she wore a snowy dook. At the sight of the girl she shrieked, and fell back into a carved oak chair that stood conveniently at hand.
"Poppy!" she cried; "and no carriage sent for Luce! What time did the steamer come, in the name of goodness me?"
"It's no use asking that question now, Kykie," said the girl grimly. "The only thing to do is to send a carriage down at once."
Kykie departed with amazing alacrity, while the girl examined the hall, and opening the doors that gave off it, peeped into several rooms.
"Most of the old furniture from the farm!" she commented with a look of pleasure. Presently she came to a flight of three stairs, and directed by the sound of Kykie's voice, she stepped down them and found herself in a large white-washed kitchen lined with spotless deal tables and broad shelves. An enormous kitchen range, shining and gleaming with steel and brass, took up the whole of one side of the kitchen. Wide windows let in a flood of cheerful sunshine.
Kykie, having loaded three Zulu boys with imprecations and instructions and driven them forth, had sunk into a chair again, panting, with her hand pressed to her heart, and an expression of utter misery on her face.
"Don't be so excited, Kykie," said the girl. "You can't escape the wrath to come; what is the use of making yourself miserable about it beforehand?"
Kykie rolled her big eyes heavenwards; the whites of them were a golden yellow.
"His first day home!" she wailed. "They told me at the shipping office the steamer wouldn't be in before three. May their mothers——"