In the corner of the scullery was a chair with one leg loose, waiting for the father to find time to mend it. Miss Hender's flashing eye fell on this, and seizing the leg and plunging it into the boiling copper, she lifted out the clothes into the washing-tray with it. The chair leg was dusty and it was covered with yellow varnish and paint, but in her foolish and senseless rage she never stopped to think of this, and for months and months after the stains on the clothing stood as a reminder and a reproach, for not even time and frequent washings could remove them altogether.
Bella turned away miserable enough. The chair was ruined, of course, as well as the clothes, and she was old enough to understand the wicked waste such an outburst of temper may cause.
"It was one of those mother saved up for and bought," she said to herself, the tears welling up in her eyes, "and she was so proud of them. I wish father had mended it at once, then it wouldn't have been lying about in the scullery, in her way."
A voice from the garden, though, drove the other thoughts from her mind; it was Margery's calling softly to her, "Bella, I'm so hungry. Give Margery something to eat, she's so hungry."
Bella's misery deepened to anger against the cause of all this wretchedness; the bad-tempered woman who was spoiling all their happiness.
"It isn't her house," she argued to herself; "it's father's house, and ours, and I am sure he wouldn't have Margery or any of us go hungry. It is cruel to starve a little thing like that, and I've a good mind to go to the larder and get her something to eat."
But fear of the storm such an act would raise, and fear lest some of it should fall on Margery, a feeling of respect too for her aunt's authority, kept her from doing this, but did not lessen her determination to relieve her little sister's wants, and an idea came to her that sent her quickly to the garden with a brightened face.
"Tom," she said softly to the elder of her two brothers, "Margery is so hungry, and I believe there won't be any dinner at all to-day. Aunt Emma hasn't said anything about it, and she's in an awful temper."
Tom and Charlie groaned, "And we're starving!"
"I shall go and pull up a turnip to eat," said Charlie defiantly. "I wish the apples were big enough to be any good."