Bonnet. Oh, you wicked little brat! I just want to get hold of you and shake you! [Makes a snatch at Tibbie, who gets beyond her clutch, and turns scared eyes on Sally.]
Tibbie [just audibly]. I want to go home; I want to go home.
Bonnet [bitterly]. It don't seem possible that I can run out a minute just to do an errand for Mrs. Darling herself—to get a spool of feather-stitching silk—but things like this has to happen. Catherine, I thought you at least was a responsible person, and here you has to go and——
Catherine [promptly]. Mrs. Bonnet, you just let that alone! Don't you try none of that with me! I went out of an errand every bit as much as you did. I went out to make sure the ice cream would be sent in good season for Christmas dinner, I did. Now I don't get dragged into this mess one bit more than you do!
Bonnet [looking at her with a poison-green eye]. Well, Mrs. Darling will be here in a minute, and then we shall see what we shall see. Land, ain't that woman been cross to-day, and fussy! 'Tain't as if she was like other people—a little bit sensible, and could take some little few things into consideration, and remember we're all human flesh and blood. Not much! She don't consider nothing, nor nobody, nor feelings, nor circumstances! She just makes things fly! Things has to go her way, every time!
Tibbie [pathetically, turning a trembling face to Sally]. I want to go home!
Bonnet [uglily]. No, you shan't go home! You shall stay right here and take the blame you deserve, after spoiling the face of that handsome doll. What do you mean by it, you little brat, you little gutter-imp!
Sally [with a boldness new in her relations with Mrs. Bonnet]. You let her alone, Mrs. Bonnet! Don't you talk to her like that! Anyone can see she's as sorry as sorry can be for what she's done, and all the trouble she's got us into—— [Cook appears in door.]
Bonnet. And what does that help, I'd like to know? The doll is broke, ain't it? And some one of us is going to catch it, however things go. You're a lucky girl, I say, if you don't lose your place. Some one of us is a-going to, I can easy foretell.