"No, but I'm thankful to hear they're coming; I have been so plagued about the dinner."
She now came in, and seating herself, exclaimed, "I declare, Emily, such an ironing as our girls have got to do to-day! You never saw anything like it! There's no end to the fine clothes Mrs. Graham and her nieces put into our wash. It's a shame! Rich as they are, they might put out their washing. I've been helping, myself, as much as I could; but, as Mrs. Prime says, one can't do everything at once; and I've had to see the butcher, make puddings and blancmange, and been worried to death all the time, because I forgot to engage those strawberries. So Mrs. Wilkins hadn't sent her fruit to market when you got there?"
"No, but she was in a great hurry getting ready; it would have been gone in a very short time."
"Well, that was lucky. I don't know what I should have done without, for I've no time to hunt up anything else for dessert. I've got just as much as I can do till dinner-time. Mrs. Graham never kept house before, and don't know how to make allowance for anything. She comes home from Boston, expects to find everything in apple-pie order, and never asks or cares who does the work."
Mrs. Prime called out, "Mrs. Ellis, the boy has brought your strawberries, and the stalks an't off; he said they hadn't no time."
"That's too bad," exclaimed the tired housekeeper. "Who's going to take the stalks off, I should like to know? Kate is busy, and I can't do it."
"I will, Mrs. Ellis; let me do it," said Gertrude, following Mrs. Ellis, who was now half-way downstairs.
"No, no! don't you, Miss Gertrude," said Mrs. Prime; "they'll only stain your fingers all up."
"No matter if they do; my hands are not made of white kid. They'll bear washing."
Mrs. Ellis was only too thankful for Gertrude's help. Belle and Kitty were doing their best to entertain Mr. Bruce, who, sitting on the door-steps, from time to time cast his eyes down the entry, and up the staircase, in hopes of Gertrude's reappearance; and despairing of it, he was about to depart, when his sister Fanny came running up the yard, and rushed past the assembled trio for the house.