“No, Dick,” she replied slowly, “there beant but one queen, and I’ve seen the queen, and she’s beautiful and good, and she looked at me, Dick, and I’m not a goin’ to take ’er place, so I’ll be the hearl’s wife please, Dick dear.”
The two boys laughed louder than ever, and then Jenks, coming forward and bowing obsequiously, said in a mock serious tone—
“Will my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, conderscend to a ’elpin’ o’ taters and beef along o’ her ’umble servants, and will she conderscend to rise orf this ’ere grass, as hotherwise the perleece might feel obligated to give ’er in charge, it being contrary to the rules, that even a hearl’s wife should make this ’ere grass ’er cushion.”
Considerably frightened, as Jenks intended she should be, Flo tumbled to her feet, and the three children walked away. Dick nudged his sister and looked intensely mysterious, his bright eyes were dancing, his shock of rough hair was pushed like a hay-stack above his forehead, his dirty freckled face was flushed. Jenks preceded the brother and sister by a few steps, getting over the ground in a light and leisurely manner, most refreshing to the eyes of Dick.
“Ain’t ’ee a mate worth ’avin’?” he whispered to Flo.
“But wot about the meat and taters?” asked Flo, who by this time was very hungry; “ain’t it nothink but another ‘s’pose’ arter all?”
“Wait and you’ll see,” replied Dick with a broad grin.
“Here we ’ere,” said Jenks, drawing up at the door of an eating-house, not quite so high in the social scale as Verrey’s, but a real and substantial eating-house nevertheless.
“Now, my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, which shall it be? Smokin’ ’ot roast beef and taters, or roast goose full hup to chokin’ o’ sage and onions? There, Flo,” he added, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking and looking like a different Jenks, “you ’as but to say one or t’other, so speak the word, little matey.”
Seeing that there was a genuine eating-house, and that Jenks was in earnest, Flo dropped her assumed character, and confessed that she had once tasted ’ot fat roast beef, long ago in mother’s time, but had never so much as seen roast goose; accordingly that delicacy was decided on, and Jenks having purchased a goodly portion, brought it into the outer air in a fair-sized wooden bowl, which the owner of the eating-house had kindly presented to him for the large sum of four pence. At sight of the tempting mess cooling rapidly in the breeze, all Flo’s housewifely instincts were awakened.