Sarah looked uncomfortable; she picked up a corner of her apron and pleated it uneasily.
"Well, you see, miss, we've been using up a lot of things lately—"
Nell laughed lightly.
"Sarah, are you telling me I eat too much?"
"No, miss." Sarah sighed, hesitated. "But it do run away with things 'aving folks to meals!" she blurted out. "Oh, miss, I beg your parding!" she gasped, aghast at the change in Nell's face.
"We will have the beef bone for lunch, with potatoes and bread!" said Nell, tragically, and marched upstairs to the Stronghold, where Denis was mending a shelf before rushing off to the bank.
"Denis,"—her soft voice rushed it all out in wild indignation,—"we have been insulted! We're not to invite Ted here to meals any more! Nor anyone else! We're to bundle them off without letting them eat or drink beneath this hateful, mean, petty little roof! That's what it has come to now!"
"By Jove, Nell! what's it all mean?"
"It means that we've been using up too much of Aunt Kezia's money! The accounts were to run till she came back, whatever that means! But this morning Sarah warned me—me!—that having folks to meals do run away with things so!" She ended with a shaky little laugh.
"That all? What on earth does it matter what a well-meaning but silly little hap'orth says?"