"It can't be helped, Sarah. Candle grease or lamp oil, we must have it, if Aunt Kezia did. And—don't you think you could use less butter in your cooking, Sarah?" She felt distinctly mean as she said it, but it was only in accordance with strict injunctions in Miss Kezia's letter.
"Oh, well, miss," Sarah's tone grew ruffled, "I couldn't cook proper with less! And as for dripping—you wouldn't like that!"
"But you must use it if you do when Aunt Kezia is at home, Sarah," said Nell, preparing to flee. Now dripping was to Sarah as a red rag to a bull. Nell was pursued across the hall and into the morning room with an avalanche of excited eloquence, the refrain of which was: "Castle folk to eat dripping! Why, you'll turn sick at it, miss!"
Nell, in a perfect excess of goodness, went up to the Stronghold once more, and averting her eyes from a study of foxhounds on her easel, took up the account-book once more. She sent Molly and the Atom out with Kate Kearney, and then she wrestled. The end of it was flushed cheeks, angry eyes, worried brows, and a ruffled head of hair. Then Nell flung the book into a corner of the room.
"That's where you ought to be, you nasty, sordid, money-grubbing little worm!"
"Hulloa," cried Denis, suddenly appearing with Ted. "Whom on earth are you talking to, and swearing at, what's more?"
"How-do-you-do?" said Nell to Ted.
"Been washing your head, twin?"
"No."
"It looks like it, and you look pretty warm."