"My word!" said Pip to himself, and he slipped down and flew across to the house.
"Upon my word!" said Martha, meeting him in the hall five minutes later, a cut-glass decanter under his arm, a wineglass held in his teeth by the stem, a dish of cold chicken in his hand, and bread and butter in a little stack beside the chicken. "Upon my word! And what next, might I ask?"
"Oh, shut up, and hang your grandmother!" said Pip, brushing past her, and going a circuitous voyage to the shed lest she should be watching.
He knelt down beside his little sister and fed her with morsels of chicken and sips of wine, and stroked her wild hair, and called her old girl fifty times, and besought her to eat just a little more and a little more.
And Judy, catching the look in the brown, wet eyes above her, ate all he offered, though the first mouthful nearly choked her; she would have eaten it had it been elephant's hide, seeing she loved this boy better than anything else in the world, and he was in such distress. She was the better for it, too, and sat up and talked quite naturally after a little time.
"You shouldn't have done t you shouldn't really, you know, old girl, and what the governor will say to you beats me."
"He won't know," she answered quickly. "I'd never forgive whoever told him. I can only stay a week. I've arranged it all beautifully, and I shall live here in this loft; Father never dreams of coming here, so it will be quite safe, and you can all bring me food. And then after a week"—she sighed heavily—"I must go back again."
"Did you really walk all those miles just to see us?" Pip said, and again there was the strange note in his voice.
"I got a lift or two on the way," she said, "but I walked nearly all of it, I've been coming for nearly a week:"
"How COULD you do it? Where did you sleep, Judy? What did you eat?" Meg exclaimed, in deep distress.