“‘Oh, never mind, Sally,’ I said, panting, after a race to get into the house first—a race I had won, for Lil and Cissy were yards behind.
“‘Never mind, indeed!’ cried Sally, ‘and there’s your fine cousin coming down to-day from London. I wonder what she will say when she sees you racing about the meadow like so many wild colts, and your arms all brown and scratched, and the hooks off your dress. I never see such children, never.’
“‘But you like us, Sally,’ I said, getting hold of her rough, fat, red arm, and laying my cheek against it.
“‘I don’t, I declare I don’t,’ she cried impetuously; and to show her dislike she threw her arms round me, and squeezed my nose nearly flat against the piece of hard wood she used to wear inside her dress.
“Sally was our housemaid, parlour-maid, and nursemaid all in one; and it used to seem to me that she spent all her leisure time in quarrelling with the cook and snubbing us; but, for all that, one of my principal recollections, during the fever I had so long, was waking at all times to see Sally’s red face watching by my bedside; and I know she did all cook’s work for six weeks as well as her own, when the poor thing had such a sad accident and cut her hand.
“We three—Lil, Cissy, and I—had a long discussion about cousin Kate and her visit; and we all felt what dreadful little ragamuffins we should seem to her, for I’m afraid we had been running wild; though papa only used to laugh about it, and would come into the school-room when mamma was busy with us over our lessons, whenever it was a fine morning, and cry, ‘Now then, girls, the sun shines and the birds are calling. Out with you! Learn lessons when it rains.’
“I knew afterwards why this was. Papa had a horrible nervous dread of our growing up weak and sickly, for his was a delicate family; and I had heard that our cousins were often very ill.
“‘I can guess why cousin Kate’s coming to stay with us,’ said Lil.
“‘I know why she’s coming,’ I said.
“‘It’s because she’s ill,’ shouted Lil, for fear I should show my knowledge first.