Mrs Lloyd hurried away to meet Polly, just about to enter the housekeeper’s room.
“And pray, where have you been, madam?”
“Only out in the grounds, aunt—it was so fine,” was the reply.
Mrs Lloyd looked at her till a red glow overspread the girl’s face.
“Look here,” said Mrs Lloyd, catching her by one hand; “you are not a fool, Polly. You understand what I mean, don’t you?”
The girl looked up at her with a shiver, and then her eyes fell.
“Don’t you try to thwart me, mind, or you’ll be sorry for it to the last day of your life. Now, look here, do you mind me?”
“Yes, aunt.”
“You are to keep in the housekeeper’s room here till those friends of Master Dick’s are gone. And don’t you try to deceive me, because I can read that pink and white face of yours like a book.”
Mrs Lloyd flung the little maiden’s hand away from her, walked to a drawer, and brought out some new linen, which she set the girl to sew, while she went about the house seeing to the arrangements for her master’s guests.