'Oh, Jack, why are you so cross-grained,' Bryda said, 'it is not like you.'
'I don't feel like myself neither,' poor Jack said, 'but I'll be in a better temper when I see you next Sunday, and don't have that mad boy at your heels. Take care what you do in Bristol; it is full of people, and some of them are bad enough. So take care, for you know you are—well, you have only to look in a glass to see. Good-bye, Bryda, I won't come up to the door.'
Bryda found Mrs Lambert only half awake in her easy-chair, with the best china teacups and a small teapot before her. Blair's sermons and the port wine together had caused a prolonged slumber, and Sam had brought in the tray all unobserved at five o'clock. Mr Lambert generally spent his Sunday afternoons with a friend at Long Ashton, and sometimes one of Mrs Lambert's cronies looked in on her for a dish of tea and a gossip. But no one had arrived on this afternoon, and the good lady had thus slept on undisturbed.
'What is the time, Miss Palmer? It must be time for tea.'
'Oh, yes, madam; it is six o'clock. I will go and boil the kettle, and make the tea; please give me the keys of the caddy.'
Bryda took the large tortoiseshell caddy from the shelf in the glass cupboard, and Mrs Lambert solemnly unlocked it. Tea was precious in those days, and Mrs Lambert took a teaspoon and carefully measured the precise quantity, saying,—
'One for each person, and one for the pot.'
'I have had my tea, madam,' Bryda said.
'Oh! Well you can take another cup, I daresay,' Mrs Lambert said graciously. 'I am getting a little faint,' she added, yawning, 'so I shall be obliged to you to hasten to brew the tea.'
Bryda lost no time, and descending to the lower regions, set Sam at liberty till nine o'clock, and very soon had tea and crisp toast ready for her mistress.