To keep on telling oneself to bear up seemed of little use. She had had to do that each hour of each day since her mother’s death. The prospect of being cast upon the world was indeed dispiriting, yet in the end it might turn out better than to sacrifice one’s youth upon the altar of such a Moloch as Uncle Si.
As people who sleep ill are apt to do, she fell into a comfortable doze just about the time she ought to be getting up. Thus, to her dismay, she entered upon the trying institution known as Monday morning at a quarter past seven instead of half past six.
“Uncle Si will be growling for his breakfast in another quarter of an hour,” was the thought that urged her into her clothes with a frantic haste. One twist she gave and no more, without so much as a glance in the glass, at the mane of brown gold hair, and then she flew downstairs, buttoning the front of her dress.
A fire was burning in the kitchen grate, and upon it slices of bacon were sizzling in a frying-pan; the cloth was laid for breakfast; moreover, the parlour was already swept and dusted. In fact, at the precise moment of June’s belated appearance upon the scene, William, with a businesslike air, was returning from a visit to the dustbin.
When they met in the passage by the scullery she came within an ace of rebuking him. “Even if I oversleep myself you’ve no right to be so officious,” was the sharp phrase which rose to her lips. But a saving sense of justice, not always at the service of the female soul, held it back. After all, such kindness and devotion were worthy of respect; he had saved, besides, an unpleasant scene with Uncle Si.
“Oh, thank you, William, ever so much,” she had the grace to murmur, hoping as she hastily disposed of the last button of her dress, that he wouldn’t notice she had come down, “half undone.”
“Please don’t mention it, Miss June,” he said, with the politeness of a courtier, as he returned the empty dustpan to its home beneath the scullery sink. “As you didn’t seem quite yourself last night I was hoping you would not get up at all this morning. I was going to bring your breakfast up to you, and set it outside your door.”
“Oh, but you are much too kind.” A sudden fierce rush of colour made her cheeks burn horribly. He was a very nice fellow, even if he was not so bright in some things as he ought to be.
Uncle Si, by the grace of providence, was a few minutes late for his breakfast. This seldom happened for, as a rule, he was the soul of punctuality. However, he was going down to Newbury by the nine o’clock from Paddington to attend a sale; in consequence, he had bestowed far more pains upon his appearance than was usual at this early hour. He was in a fairly good humour. The fact that the charwoman’s return would enable him “to fire” his niece had cheered him so much that for once he had slept like a just man.
“Don’t expect me until supper time,” he said to June, as he put on his high felt hat and his macintosh, and grasped the knobbed stick, as ugly as himself, which invariably accompanied his travels. “And my advice to you, my girl, is to think over very carefully what I said to you last night.”