“But what is she doing?” demanded Nancy.
“She is a-eaten’ of her supper, Miss, h’and she says when I tells her you wuz come: ‘Tell ’em to wyte. Beggars awn’t choosers,’ says she. ‘If I’ve got to look awfter them while they’re in Lundon,’ says she, ‘I’ll look awfter them in me own w’y, h’and if they’re lyte, I’ll be lyter,’ she says, h’and no mistykes.”
Billie’s face flushed a brilliant scarlet.
“My cousin said that?” she said. She walked over and looked the girl squarely in the face. “How dare you repeat a message of that sort as coming from my cousin? Take me to her instantly or I’ll find her myself, if I have to look over the whole house from cellar to garret.”
At these words of authority, the slavey wilted into a cringing, obsequious creature.
“I awsk your pardon, Miss,” she whimpered. “An’ I awsk you not to go and tell the Missus. She’s that strict. I’m only a poor slyvey, Miss, an’ work is poor paid for me and the lykes of me. I thowt you wuz different, Miss. ’Onest, I did.”
“Just take us to my cousin, please, and never mind what you think,” ordered Billie, too exasperated and anxious to feel any human pity for the miserable little slavey.
They followed her into a black passage leading Heaven knows where,—down into the bowels of the earth, the young girls believed for a moment; for they now descended a narrow flight of stairs so dark and narrow that they could touch the wall on each side. At last in the basement hall they perceived a glimmering light through a crack in a door which the slavey opened fearfully.
“Down’t scowld, ma’am. Your relytion would come down. H’I couldn’t help it. ‘Onest I couldn’t.”
The two girls walked boldly into the circle of light and stood blinking their eyes after the darkness outside.