"Careful—is ut? Careful! I'm that—hic careful, mum! You'll not find me equal—on Shtaten Island, mum. I'm—jist a-ristin' mesilf a bit. I'm that wore out wid—hic—shlavin' fer the loikes av yez. An' I'll do ut no longer!"
Miss MacGrotty here relinquished her lax hold upon the saucepan which glissaded briskly to the floor, scattering blobs of brown sauce in every direction.
"Mary!" repeated Mrs. Belknap, "you must be ill!"
"Git out av me kitchen!" advised Miss MacGrotty trenchantly. "I'll not have the loikes av yez a-bossin' me! I'm a perfec' leddy, I am, an'—hic—I'll not put up wid yer lip no more, ner I won't put up wid hers neither—a-tellin' me I ain't honest, an' me on'y takin' me perquisites now an' thin in tay an' sugar an' the loike!"
"I do believe you've been drinking!" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap, a great light breaking in upon her mind. "Tell me, was it you who put those things in poor Jane's trunk?"
"Indade, an' I'll not tak' a worrd av yer imperance!" retorted Miss MacGrotty, with drunken dignity. "I says to mesilf, 'I'll tak' down her high looks,' I says. An' I done ut!"
Mrs. Belknap turned and fled—straight into the arms of her husband, who had just entered the house. In that safe refuge the little woman burst into tormented tears, while the infant clinging to her skirts lifted up his voice in sympathetic concert.
"What in the world?" began the distracted husband and father. "Hold hard here! I've got oranges, Buster! and violets, Madge! Come, dear, brace up and tell a fellow what's up! Anybody sick or dead? Or what has happened?"
Thus entreated Mrs. Belknap sobbed out an incoherent account of the untoward happenings of the day.