The stout red-faced second wife of Grimm sat in the arm-chair eyeing her not over kindly for a minute or so, and then in a harsh voice addressed the girl:
"You minx! you minx!" working herself up into a passion; "you do it on purpose to aggravate me, I know you do."
"Do what?" asked Mary, calmly.
"I've been watching you these ten minutes—dawdling, dawdling, dawdling, as slow as you can; that's what it is. Hurry up now over those things. What do I give you your food for, and your clothes too, do you think? To work: and work for your living you shall as sure as my name's Grimm. Hurry up; don't stand there like a stuck pig, with your sulky putty face. Do you hear?"
This was a long speech for Mrs. Grimm, and she halted for breath and further inspiration.
Not a muscle of Mary's face moved, but she did hurry up a little; only for a few seconds though, when, altering her mind, she stopped suddenly in her work and said in a deliberate voice:
"I suppose you think I ought to be very grateful to you, don't you?"
"What! grateful, grateful!" ejaculated the angry woman, almost too surprised at this exhibition of spirit to talk distinctly. "What on earth do you mean, you little—you little—"
But before she could find an epithet forcible enough for the occasion, Mary interrupted her in the same cool, unimpassioned voice as before: for she did not fear, and had learned to despise, her low-minded step-mother.