Sally turned away without a word, but when nearly through the doorway, she looked back and said:
"I am not a beggar. I am an American girl, and mean to act like one."
Now there is always something about the words of one who gets not in a rage, but answers coolly one who is in one, that cools down the wrathful person and sets him or her to thinking. And Mistress Brace was struck with fear. What had she dared to say? And what meant Sally to do?
But her temper was too high to put down all at once, so she replied:
"Very sure that you are an American, are you?"
Then, as if it came into her mind that she had better not have said that, and as she also already wished she had not called the maid a beggar, bidding her go away and stay, she began, with a sour kind of laugh:
"Of course, I know nought of you before you were a baby wench of four years or so, and if you are so silly set against getting the tea—"
But Sally had darted to her tiny room. She would wait to hear no more. And thankful she was that Goodman Kellar came the next moment with eggs and butter for Mistress Cory Ann to chaffer or bargain about.
Mistress Brace had never been soft of speech, although she could put on the manners of a well-spoken dame, but she had of late grown more and more rough and coarse, ordering Sally about at times in so unmannerly a way that the maid had more than once turned it over in her mind, wondering if she had any right so to order her.
And then, in truth, Sally was noticing such things more after hearing Mistress Maria Kent's nice and gentle speech than she had in the past. And now she hastened to get away if possible before Mistress Brace and Goodman Kellar should be done parleying. All her young spirit flamed up when the mistress called her a beggar, and although something fine in her nature kept her quiet at the words, they were not to be passed over.