"I'll leave this here house when Missus sends me! I like the place and I'm stayin' till I'm fired by her. Not till."
"If you're not out of here in half an hour"—Daniel took out his watch and glanced at it—"I'll send for the police and have you ejected."
Amanda glared for an instant. "Well, my goodness!" she exclaimed at length, "to think of my gettin' up against a common bunch like this here, when I thought (judgin' by Missus) that I was gettin' into a swell family, the kind I'm used to! All right! Suits me to go. I never worked anyhow at a house where they kep' only one maid. I'm used to livin' with aristocrats!" she flung her parting shaft as she cast off her white apron, stamped out of the kitchen and upstairs to her room.
"Now," Jennie triumphed as she and Daniel went back to the sitting-room, "when Margaret comes home, she'll find out how nice it is to have no hired girl and us not here to cook, and her with company to supper, and the babies over at our place where she—can't—come!" she said with a cold-blooded incisiveness. "Mebby, after all, Danny, she will wish she had us back here to keep care of things for her."
"I'd like to know," Daniel pouted, "why she stays out so long with Walter Eastman! I came home early on purpose to talk business with him. I have several things of importance to settle up with him. I want to get through with it and see him off, for I'm in a hurry to get Margaret's furniture here, and to see what can be done with her property down there. I'm sure I can make it worth something. I'll get Eastman's wife to give me a mortgage on it and then I'll——"
The banging of the front door checked him. "They are back at last," he said.
"No, it's that sassy hired girl going," said Jennie with satisfaction as she glanced from the window and saw the girl departing with a heavy suit-case.
"I guess," said Daniel, "I'll have to eat my supper over at your house, Jennie, if you'll invite me. It looks as if there wouldn't be any supper here. Or, if there is, it will be late. And you know how I like to have my meal on time."
"Of course you do. You come right along home with me, Danny, and get your nice, warm supper at the time you're used to it! Emmy's making waffles for supper this evening."
"I'll leave a note for Margaret," said Daniel, going to a desk in a corner of the room. "She might be frightened if she came in and found us all gone and no explanation."