“Oh, my word, sir! And are you to be poisoned hout and hout?”
“That is unlikely. Maggie, your kitchen-maid, is fond of cooking, and she won’t quarrel with Miss Polly. Let us consider it arranged, then. A week’s holiday won’t do you any harm, cook, and your expenses I will defray. Now, excuse me, I must go out at once. The carriage has been at the door for some time.”
CHAPTER X.
INDIGESTION WEEK.
It was quite early on the following Monday morning when a light tap was heard outside the door of the room where Helen and Polly slept. It was a very light, modest, and uncertain tap, and it has not the smallest effect upon Helen, who lay in soft slumber, her pretty eyes closed, her gentle face calm and rounded and child-like, and the softest breathing coming from her rosy, parted lips.
Another little girl, however, was not asleep. At that modest tap up sprang a curly head, two dark, bright eyes opened wide, two white feet sprang quickly but noiselessly on to the floor, and Polly had opened the bed-room door wide to admit the short, dumpy, but excited little person of Maggie, the kitchen-maid.
“She’s a-going, Miss Polly—she’s a-packing her bandbox now, and putting the strap on. She’s in a hawful temper, but she’ll be out of the house in less than half an hour. There’s a beautiful fire in the kitchen, Miss, and the pan for frying bacon is polished up so as you could ’most see yourself in it. And the egg-saucepan is there all ’andy, and the kettle fizzing and sputtering. I took cook up her breakfast, but she said she didn’t want none of our poisonous messes, and she’d breakfast with her cousin in the village if we’d no objection. She’ll be gone in no time now, Miss Polly, and I’m a-wanting to know when you’ll be a-coming down stairs.”
“I’m going to dress immediately, Maggie,” said Polly. “I’ve scarcely slept all night, for this is an anxious moment for me. I’ll join you in half an hour at the latest, Maggie, and have lots of saucepans and frying-pans and gridirons ready. Keep the fire well up too, and see that the oven is hot. There, fly away, I’ll join you soon.”