Ruth’s eyes grew a little more wide open as she heard this, for she thought that poor little Richard Millet seemed to be left to talk to her more than he liked.
“Oh, nonsense, love,” replied Marie. “But you don’t mean it, you know;” and then the sisters smiled most affectionately one at the other, and gazed curiously in each other’s eyes.
But as they smiled and looked affectionately at each other, they seemed to need an outlet for the wrath that was gathering fast, and poor Ruth’s was the head upon which this poured. The tears stood in her eyes again and again, as first one and then the other displayed her irritation in words, pushes, and more than once in what seemed greatly like blows, all of which was borne in a patient, long-suffering manner. For Ruth was far worse off than a servant, the least independent of which class of young lady would not have submitted to a tithe of the insult and annoyance that fell to the poor girl’s share.
Upon the present occasion the loud jangling of the bell, that was swung about and shaken by Joseph as if he detested the brazen creation, announced that lunch was ready, the mid-day repast by a pleasant fiction retaining that name, though no late dinner followed, the evening meal taking the form of tea and thick bread, and butter of the kind known as “best Dorset, and regarding whose birth there is always a mystery.”
The looks of the sisters were anything but bright and loving as they went down, followed by Ruth, who secretly drew up her sleeve, displaying her white, well-moulded arm as she ruefully inspected a black mark—to wit, the bruise made by a forcible pinch from Clotilde’s nervous finger and thumb.
The poor girl heaved a little sigh as she drew back her gingham sleeve—gingham and alpaca being fabrics highly in favour with the Honourable Misses Dymcox—though they always insisted upon calling the latter by the name of “stuff”—on economical grounds. Then she meekly took her place, grace was said, and the Honourable Isabella proceeded to dispense the mutton broth, richly studded with pearls of barley to the exclusion of a good deal of meat, Joseph giving quite a dignity to the proceedings as he waited at table, removing the soup-tureen cover with an artistic flourish, and turning it bottom upwards so as not to let a drop of the condensed steam fall upon the cloth, though a drop reached Ruth, whose fate it seemed to be to get the worst of everything, even to the boniest portions of the substance of the mutton broth, and the crustiest, driest pieces of the day before yesterday’s bread.
But there was a becoming dignity in Miss Philippa’s manners upon the present occasion, and she sipped her broth and played with the barley as if she anticipated finding pearls in place of unpleasant little sharp splinters of scrag of mutton bone.
“Thank you, yes, Joseph,” she said quietly, as the man brought round a very small jug of the smallest beer, and poured out a wineglassful each for the elderly sisters, without froth, so that it might look like sherry, or that delicious elderly maiden lady’s beverage known as marsala.
“Oh, by the way, sister,” said Miss Isabella, “did you think to mention about town?”
“Oh no, I did not,” said Miss Philippa. “By the way, Joseph, you will order the carriage for nine o’clock to-morrow morning.”