"'Ere she is!" Mrs. Stubbs exclaimed, as the little figure in black appeared in the doorway. "Flossie ought to have known you would come down to dessert the first evening; and, after that, you must take it in turn with the others."
"Yes, Auntie," said Sarah shyly, taking the chair next to Mrs. Stubbs, for which she was thankful.
"Will you 'ave some grapes, my dear?" Mrs. Stubbs asked kindly.
"Sarah 'd like a nectarine," said Mr. Stubbs, who made a god of his stomach, and loved good things.
"I doubt if she will," his wife said; "they're bitter to a child's taste; but 'ave which you like best, Sarah."
"Grapes, please, Auntie," said Sarah promptly.
As a matter of fact, Sarah did not exactly know what nectarines were; and, not liking to confess her ignorance, lest by doing so she should bring on herself sarcastic glances, to be followed later by sarcastic remarks from Flossie and Tom, she chose what she was sure of; besides, she did not want to run the risk of getting something upon her plate which she did not like, and perhaps could not eat. Poor Sarah still had a lively recollection of once helping herself to a piece of crystallised ginger when out to tea with her father. She could not bear hot things, and it seemed to her that that piece of ginger was the hottest morsel she had ever put in her mouth. She sucked and sucked in the hope of reducing it, and so getting rid of it, and the harder she sucked the hotter it grew. She tried crushing it between her sharp young teeth, but that process only seemed to bring out the heat more and more.
And at last, in sheer desperation, Sarah bethought herself of her pocket-handkerchief, and, putting it up as if to wipe her lips, ejected the pungent morsel, and at the same time seized the opportunity of putting her poor little burning tongue out to cool.
"Have another piece of ginger, dear," the lady of the house had said, seeing that her plate was empty.
CHAPTER VII