CHAPTER X
THE RECITAL
For a few weeks after Angelina's coup she had little further opportunity to show her skill. The successor of the eloping cook proved a capable, steady person, so in love with her new place that to Angelina's disgust she hardly ever even took the afternoon and evening off to which she was entitled. For it had always been Angelina's custom in the absence of the cook to entertain some of her own friends in Mrs. Stratford's dining-room, and to provide them with refreshments of her own concoction.
For doing this she would have justified herself (had she thought she needed justification) by saying that no one had ever forbidden her to have company—and anyway, Miss Martine would never object.
In this opinion she was quite correct. But, unfortunately, Mrs. Stratford, and not her daughter, was in charge, and the former, unlike Martine, did not find the Portuguese girl a perpetual source of amusement. Neither was Angelina as popular with the new cook as she had hoped to be. Her blandishments had never availed so little to get her what she wanted.
"And why she's so anxious to get me out of the house, I can in no ways understand, Mrs. Stratford, and me as quiet as can be, and never saying nothing to her when she sits there reading them novels with the big pictures on the cover, or making faces over the pomes she's learning."
"Oh, I don't believe she's anxious to have you out of the way—only—"
"Yes'm, it's just that. She's wishing to fill the place up with company of her own, and because I keep an eye to the ice-chest she isn't at all pleased. I know what girls is, ma'am, and that Angelina, she's always up to something."
Martine, when her mother repeated the substance of the cook's words, laughed lightly.