While Bella was thinking it all out and trying to make up her mind what she should do, she was standing idle—and that, to begin with, was not the way to please and pacify her aunt, tired as she was with long hours of hard work, exhausted from want of food, with her back aching, and her feet throbbing with long standing on the stone floor. If only Bella had made her a cup of tea and got the simple meal ready while she sat and rested a little, what a relief it would have been, and what good it would have done her, but her own temper prevented that. For one thing, Bella would not have dared to touch anything without being told she might, and, for another, she was so frightened now at the thought of what she had done and of her aunt's probable anger, that she stood absorbed and perplexed, and did not even do the things she might have done.
Naturally the weary woman grew irritated by such thoughtlessness. "I don't know how long you expect me to wait on you!" she said tartly, "while you stand by, too lazy even to do the little you know how to. Go and draw a jug of water this minute, and tell the children to wash their hands. I s'pose you're capable of doing that much."
Bella, still without explaining, took the jug and went out to the pump. By the time she came back her aunt had cut off several slices of cold bacon and put some on four plates, one for each of them. Bella felt perfectly ill with fear when she saw these preparations.
"Aunt Emma!" she began, but so tremulously that her aunt did not hear her.
"Where are the children? Didn't you tell them?" demanded Miss Hender tartly.
"They aren't there," stammered Bella nervously, "they haven't come back——"
"Back from where?"—Bella's manner struck Miss Hender more than her words—it made what was apparently a trifling matter seem important.
"I—they—they were so hungry, and—I didn't know there was going to be any dinner, and—and I gave them money to go and get some buns."
"And you trusted those two boys to take Margery right down to the village——"
"No," broke in Bella, anxious to explain; "they took her only as far as Aunt Maggie's, and when they'd got their buns they were to come back there for her, and——"