“Shall I take down the fire, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am, please?” asked Lilly Dogger, after a little pause.
“No, ye sha’n’t. What’s that ye see on the fire; have ye eyes in your head? Don’t you see the kettle there? How do I know but your master’ll be home to-night, and want a cup o’ tea, or—law knows what?”
Mrs. Tarnley looked put about, as she phrased it, and in one of those special tempers which accompanied that state. So Lilly Dogger, eyeing her with wide open eyes, made her a frightened little courtesy.
“Why don’t ye get up betimes in the morning, huzzy, and then ye needn’t be mopin’ about half the night? All the colour’s washed out o’ your big, ugly, platter face, wi’ your laziness—as white as a turnip. When I was a girl, if I left my work over so, I’d ’a the broomstick across my back, I promise ye, and bread and water next day too good for my victuals; but now ye thinks ye can do as ye like, and all’s changed! An’ every upstart brat is as good as her betters. But don’t ye think ye’ll come it over me, lass, don’t ye. Look up there at the clock, will ye, or do ye want me to pull ye up by the ear—ten minutes past eleven—wi’ your dawdling, ye limb!”
The old woman whisked about, and putting her hand on a cupboard door, she turned round again before opening it, and said—
“Come on, will ye, and take your bread if you want it, and don’t ye stand gaping there, ye slut, as if I had nothing to do but attend upon you, with your impittence. I shouldn’t give ye that.”
She thumped a great lump of bread down on the kitchen table by which the girl was now standing.
“Not a bit, if I did right, and ye’ll not be sittin’ up to eat that, mind ye; ye’ll take it wi’ ye to yer bed, young lady, and tumble in without delay, d’ye mind? For if I find ye out o’ bed when I go in to see all’s right, I’ll just gi’e ye that bowl o’ cold water over yer head. In wi’ ye, an’ get ye twixt the blankets before two minutes—get along.”
The girl knew that Mrs. Tarnley could strike as well as “jaw,” and seldom threatened in vain, so with eyes still fixed upon her, she took up her fragment of loaf, with a hasty courtesy, of which the old woman took no notice, and vanished frightened through a door that opened off the kitchen.
The old woman holding the candle over her head, soon peeped in as she had threatened.