sang Julie, suggestively, but was not allowed to finish the ditty, for Hester said, with a thump on the table:
“We will put this together again double quick and I will get it to Miss Ware before dark, you see if I don’t.”
“You had better let me go next time, Hester,” said Julie, getting out the cooking utensils, “you will be tired to death.”
“No, I won’t; I have undertaken to do this thing, and I’ll put it through if it takes forever,” with which characteristic remark she set to work again.
The second effort in the culinary line was, if possible, more successful than the first and immediately after their simple lunch of bread and milk, Hester set forth again. The storm had ceased, and to the immense delight of Peter Snooks, Hester confided to him that she should walk and a certain good little dog that she knew should go too. Julie laughed at this determination to avoid the car and called her superstitious. She laughed, too, but refused to analyze her sensations.
She found Miss Ware, when she was ushered into her presence, in rather an aggressive mood, which caused the girl to look on with some nervousness as she opened the box and surveyed the loaf critically.
“Umph!” she said, examining it through her lorgnette, “did you do that, or Bridget?”
“We did it, Miss Ware. Bridget knows nothing of fancy cooking.”
“And you do, it seems. It was an odd trick for a girl to pick up in Virginia, and an undesirable one.”
“We look at things differently, Miss Ware,” Hester said, with considerable asperity. “I don’t call it undesirable if it proves a way of supporting ourselves. I would not choose it—to cook for a living—but we’ve no choice in the matter whatever.”