Kitty's hand was on the buttery door when Sarepta intervened with a truly awful aspect.
"When you wish me to go, Kitty Ross, you can say so and I will. While I stay, I calc'late to attend to things in this kitchen. You go into the sittin'-room and I'll bring you a tray."
The tray, when brought, displayed a most tempting little meal: creamed chicken, buttered scones, cocoa and strawberry jam; but for once Kitty seemed hardly conscious of the good things. She looked up as if in a dream, her eyes soft and dewy.
"Are you very cross, Sarepta?" she asked. "I'm sorry I was late."
"Humph!" Sarepta apparently extremely cross, and busy setting down the tray.
"Don't you love me?" asked the girl, as she had been used to ask when she was six and wanted an extra cooky. No answer being returned, Kitty came out of her dream, her own alert, thoughtful self; looked and saw the grim lips quivering, the workworn hands trembling as they hovered about the tray.
"Sarepta!" Kitty sprang up, threw her arms round the neck of her faithful friend, and whispered three words in her ear.
"So you see!" she said.
Sarepta Darwin threw her apron over her head and departed, to hurry up to her room and lock her door. For this time, Sarepta was crying, and no one must ever know it. The idea!