“Whoever’ll say that, he wasn’t looking at me yestherday, and I makin’ the cake for herself and Misther Dysart! Eight eggs, an’ a cupful of sugar and a cupful of butther, and God knows what more went in it, an’ the half of me day gone bating it, and afther all they left it afther thim!”
“And whose fault was that but your own for not sending it up in time?” rejoined Charlotte, her voice sharpening at once to vociferative argument; “Miss Francie told me that Mr. Dysart was forced to go without his tea.”
“Late or early I’m thinkin’ thim didn’t ax it nor want it,” replied Norry, issuing from the larder with a basketful of crumpled linen in her arms, and a visage of the utmost sourness; “there’s your clothes for ye now, that was waitin’ on me yestherday to iron them, in place of makin’ cakes.”
She got a bowl of water and began to sprinkle the clothes and roll them up tightly, preparatory to ironing them, her ill-temper imparting to the process the air of whipping a legion of children and putting them to bed. Charlotte came over to the table, and, resting her hands on it, watched Norry for a few seconds in silence.
“What makes you say they didn’t want anything to eat?” she asked; “was Miss Francie ill, or was anything the matter with her?”
“How do I know what ailed her?” replied Norry, pounding a pillow-case with her fist before putting it away; “I have somethin’ to do besides followin’ her or mindin’ her.”
“Then what are ye talking about?”
“Ye’d betther ax thim that knows. ’Twas Louisa seen her within in the dhrawn’-room, an’ whatever was on her she was cryin’; but, sure, Louisa tells lies as fast as a pig’d gallop.”
“What did she say?” Charlotte darted the question at Norry as a dog snaps at a piece of meat.
“Then she said plinty, an’ ’tis she that’s able. If ye told that one a thing and locked the doore on her the way she couldn’t tell it agin, she’d bawl it up the chimbley.”