“No, Marie,” was the reply, as a troubled, pale face was lifted from the pillow.
“Why, I declare she has been crying!” said Clotilde. “There, jump up and help us to undress, Cindy, and we’ll tell you all about the prince and the ball. You weren’t there, were you?”
No; Cinderella, otherwise Ruth Allerton, had not been there; but she had been crying bitterly, for she had had a fright.
Volume One—Chapter Eleven.
Family Matters.
Captain Robert Millet’s lunch was carried up to him upon a very stiff, narrow tray, which took dishes and plates one after the other in a long row. It was evidently something or several somethings very savoury and nice from the odours exhaled, but everything was carefully covered over.
It was no easy task, the carriage of that long, narrow tray from the basement to the back drawing-room on the first floor, especially as there were gravies and other liquids on the tray; but Valentine Vidler and his wife had taken up breakfasts, lunches, and dinners too many thousand times to be in any difficulty now.
So, starting from the dark kitchen, where coppers, pewters, and tins shone like so many moons amidst the gloom, the odd couple each took an end of the tray, which was quite six feet long, and Vidler’s own invention. Salome went first, backwards, and Vidler followed over the level, when, as the little woman reached the mat at the foot of the kitchen stairs, there was a pause, while she held the tray with one hand and gave her long garments a hitch, so as to hold one end in her teeth and not tread upon them as she went up backwards. Then, stooping and holding the tray as low as she could, she began to ascend, Vidler following and gradually raising his end to preserve the level of the tray till he held it right above his head.