"Letitia," cries Molly, touched, giving her a little hug, "I do think you are the dearest, sweetest, truest old goose in the world."
"Nonsense, my dear!" says Letitia, with a slow pleased blush that is at once so youthful and so lovely.
"Oh! why won't Sarah come?" says Molly, recurring suddenly to her woes. "I know, even if I went on my knees to Mr. Luttrell, he would not so far trouble himself as to go in and find her; but I think she might remember my weakness for tea."
"There she is!" exclaims John.
To their right rises a hedge, on which it has been customary for ages to dry the household linen, and moving toward it appears Sarah, armed with a basket piled high to the very top.
"Sarah," calls Molly, "Sarah—Sarah!"
Now, Sarah, though an undeniably good servant, and a cleanly one, striking the beholder as a creature born to unlimited caps and spotless aprons, is undoubtedly obtuse. She presents her back hair and heels—that would not have disgraced an elephant—to Miss Massereene's call, and goes on calmly with her occupation of shaking out and hanging up to dry the garments she has just brought.
"Shall I go and call her?" asks Luttrell, with some remains of grace and an air of intense fatigue.
"Not worth your while," says John, with all a man's delicious consideration for a man; "she must turn in a moment, and then she will see us."
For two whole minutes, therefore, they gaze in rapt silence upon the unconscious Sarah. Presently Mr. Massereene breaks the eloquent stillness.