"Tea's ready. Tea's ready."
They trooped into the dining room where a large table was spread. Aunt Matilda seated herself behind the tea-kettle, Mr. George sat at the other end, before the pile of plates and the carvers, and the others took their places where they would. Jack modestly sat on Aunt Matilda's left hand, so the tawny Monica at once pounced on the chair opposite.
Entered the Good Plain Cook with a dish covered with a pewter cover, and followed by a small, dark, ugly, quiet girl carrying the vegetable dishes.
"That's my niece Mary, Jack. Lives with Aunt Matilda here, who won't spare her or I'd have her to live here with me. Now you know everybody. What's for tea?"
He was dangerously clashing the knife on the steel. Then lifting the cover, he disclosed a young pig roasted in all its glory of gravy. Mary meanwhile had nodded her head at Jack and looked at him with her big, queer, very black eyes. You might have thought she had native blood. She sat down to serve the vegetables.
"Grace, there's a fly in the milk," said Aunt Matilda, who was already pouring large cups of tea. Grace seized the milk jug and jerked from the room.
"Do you take milk and sugar, as your dear father used to, John?" asked Aunt Matilda of the youth on her left.
"Call him Bow. Bow's his name out here—John's too stiff and Jack's too common!" exclaimed Mr. George, elbows deep in carving.
"Bow'll do for me," put in Mrs. Ellis, who said little.
"Mary, is there any mustard?" said Aunt Matilda.