All this time Pegeen had not uttered a word, but her sunken black eyes looked very black indeed, and her breath came in short, quick puffs from her almost toothless mouth.
It was upon this scene that the Misses Mostyn burst in.
"Hullo, hullo, you good people!" said Daisy.
"Hold your tongue, Daisy, and let me speak," interrupted Henrietta.
But here Pegeen rose to her feet, the rest immediately following her example.
"I'll thank ye, madames, to walk out of my kitchen. Ye are not welcome here, and that's flat."
"Oh, dear, dear, what horrid people you all are!" exclaimed Daisy. "We poor orphan girls can't go anywhere to get a bit of welcome."
"To be sure now," said Pegeen, "and there is much of the grief of the orphan about yez. I niver did see it, niver, displayed so touchin' like. Ye are your mother over again, and she war a bad 'un if ever there was a bad 'un. What call had ye, I'd like to know, to go and push yourself into Miss Maureen's place—her little darling self that is the angel of the world? Yes, yez did that; and, what's more, one or other of ye, I can't say which, sthruck her across the left cheek. What call had ye to go on like that, and then come prying in on us? Get out of the way, that's what I say—quick!"
"Please," said Henrietta, who thought it best to be as polite as she knew how, for all the servants were glaring at her as though they would tear her in pieces. "Please let me speak and then I'll go, but I'll take good care to tell the master—my father—what a disgraceful scene I have lighted on. I don't believe for one moment those men have any right to be in the kitchen, and—why, I do declare that is peach jam you are eating, and new-laid eggs. I'm the head of the house in future, so you'd better accept the fact. But now, what I wish to know is this: When is Miss Daisy's and my room to be changed?"
"Sakes alive—ye have got a fine bedroom! Haven't ye tuk to it?"