"Indade, then, Miss Sue, 'tis too bad of yez entirely!" cried Katy. "And laughin', too, after sp'ilin' me gown and desthroyin' me clane flure, let alone all the milk in the house gone."
"Oh, but, Katy, if you knew how funny you look, with the white milk all over your red face! I can't help laughing; I truly can't. And my dress is spoiled too, you see, so it's all right. I can't stop now; I'm in the most terrible hurry!"
She flew on, but popped her head back through the door to say:
"But I am sorry, Katy; I truly am! And if you'll just leave the milk there, I'll pick it up—I mean wipe it up—just as soon as I get back from the picnic."
Her smile was so irresistible that Katy's angry face softened in spite of herself.
"Sure it's merely a child she is," the good woman said. "Miss Lily's twice the sinse of her, but yet 'tis her takes the heart of one!"
She brought the mop and wiped up the milk, then went soberly to change her dress, wondering how the mistress would make her breakfast without the milk-toast which was usually all she could fancy in the morning.
Sue had already forgotten the milk. She ran on across the yard, where the dew lay thick and bright, to a small building that stood under a spreading apple-tree. It had been a shed once, and its general effect was still, Sue admitted, "a little sheddy"; but the door was very fine, being painted a light pea-green, the panels picked out with scarlet, and having a really splendid door-plate of bright tin, with "S. PENROSE" in black letters. Some white pigeons sat on the roof sunning themselves, and they fluttered down about the girl's head as she tried the door.
"Dear me!" said Sue. "How stupid of me to lock the door last night! I might have known I should forget the key this morning. Never mind; I can get in at the window."
She could, and did; but, catching her dress on a nail, tore a long, jagged rent in the skirt.