"Now do try to get it right to-night, Maisie," admonished Isabella; and, turning her face, if not her glance, to Laura, she explained: "It must boil, but not have a scrap of skin on it, or Robby won't look at it."
Presently the working-men were heard pounding down the stairs, and thereupon Maisie vanished from the room.
The next day Laura attended morning and evening service at St Stephen's-on-the-Hill, and in the afternoon made one of Isabella's class at Sunday school.
That morning she had wakened, in what seemed to be the middle of the night, to find Isabella dressing by the light of a single candle.
"Don't you get up," said the latter. "We're all going to early service, and I just want to make Robby some bread and milk beforehand. He would rather communicate fasting, but he has to have something, for he doesn't get home till dinner-time."
When midday came, Robby was very fractious. The mutton-bone—no cooking was done—was harder than ever to carve with decency; and poor Mrs. Shepherd, for sheer fidgetiness, could hardly swallow a bite.
But at nine o'clock that evening, when the labours of the day were behind him, he was persuaded to lie down on the sofa and drink a glass of port. At his head sat Mrs. Shepherd, holding the wine and some biscuits; at his feet Isabella, stroking his soles. The stimulant revived him; he grew quite mellow, and presently, taking his wife's hand, he held it in his—and Laura felt sure that all his querulousness was forgiven him for the sake of this moment. Then, finding a willing listener in the black-eyed little girl who sat before him, he began to talk, to relate his travels, giving, in particular, a vivid account of some months he had once spent in Japan. Laura, who liked nothing better than travelling at second hand—since any other way was out of the question—Laura spent a delightful hour, and said so.
"Yes, Robby quite surpassed himself to-night, I thought," said Isabella as she let down her hair. "I never heard anyone who could talk as well as he does when he likes.—Can you keep a secret, Laura? We are sure, Maisie and I, that Robby will be a Bishop some day. And he means to be, himself.—But don't say a word about it; he won't have it mentioned out of the house.—And meanwhile he's working as hard as he can, and we're saving every penny, to let him take his next degree."
"I do hope you'll come again," she said the following morning, as they walked back to the College. "I don't mind telling you now, I felt quite nervous when Robby said we were to ask you. I've had no experience of little girls. But you haven't been the least trouble—not a bit. And I'm sure it was good for Robby having something young about the house. So mind you write and tell us when you have another holiday"—and Isabella's smile beamed out once more, none the less kindly because it was caught, on its way to Laura, by the gate they were passing through.
Laura, whose mind was set on a good, satisfying slab of cake, promised to do this, although her feelings had suffered so great a change that she was not sure whether she would keep her word. She was pulled two ways: on the one side was the remembrance of Mr. Shepherd hacking cantankerously at the bare mutton-bone; on the other, the cherry-blossom and the mousmes of Japan.