"I've never served apple-pudding without custard, and Miss Annie says I must be more careful and not use so many eggs, so you certainly cannot have any pudding to-day."
"It was for Arthur I wanted it," pleaded Molly.
But Hannah was inexorable. Annie had told her she must lessen household expenses somehow, and the old servant had turned cross at once. She had been with them for some years, and neither master nor mistress had ever told her such a thing before. She resented it now as though it had been an imputation upon her honesty, and she gave Molly such a rating, with this for a text, that the poor girl was glad to take refuge in the needlework that she and Annie had set themselves to do, that they might save the cost of new table-cloths if they could.
At dinner-time she began to watch for Arthur, for she longed to hear how he had got on. But the afternoon passed, bringing no news of their brother, and it was not until between seven and eight o'clock that he arrived.
"Why, where have you been, Arthur?" exclaimed Molly, jumping up to greet him as he came in.
"Did you think I was lost, or had gone for a soldier, that I did not come home to dinner?" asked Arthur teasingly.
"Have you had your tea as well as your dinner?" asked Molly, while his elder sister looked her questions.
"I think it will be all right, Annie, when I get used to the work," he said. "The chief accountant is a gentleman, and he says if I am very careful, he thinks I shall get on very well. It will be a good thing for your housekeeping, Annie, not to have me home to dinner every day. We all dine in the house, and have tea too. Sometimes I may have to go down and help at the shop desk, but, as a rule, I shall not see much more of the shops than I should if I was in a bank, for the counting-house is upstairs in another part of the house. I say, Annie, won't it be a good thing for you that I am to have my dinner there?" said Arthur again.
"Why?" asked his sister, in genuine astonishment.
"It must cost something to keep a big hungry boy like me in pies and custards, to say nothing of the meat and vegetables."