My father arose with decision that showed the case was concluded.
"Mother! you will see that our little daughter does not talk any more about this to-night? She will, I hope, feel differently in the morning."
I did not. In saying my prayers at bedtime I pointedly omitted—"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I did not mean to forgive Preciosa. Furthermore, I was not at peace with her mistress and advocate. The more I mused, the hotter the fire burned, until I was ready to convict my father of injustice, and my mother of rank favoritism for the alien. I sulked violently at breakfast, and as I was not reproved, grew so stubborn and disrespectful over my lessons that I was sent to my room to stay there until dinner was ready. The term of banishment had still an hour to run, and I was leaning, listless and wretched, out of the window when Mam' Chloe and Uncle Ike met in the yard directly beneath, and part of the low dialogue reached me.
"Ef I could onct ketch that Precious-O-sir in some o' her tricks, you'd see the fur fly,—mind!" said the butler.
"I suttinly is mighty sorry for po' Miss Molly," answered his wife. "Looks-if hur heart is pretty nigh broke. It's right down pitiful to see how much sto' she sot by them young old hyars. You mus' see ef you can't get her some mo'."
I dropped my head on the window-sill and cried out the tears that scalded my lids at the unexpected touch of sympathy. Then I fell to thinking and with a purpose.
I went down to dinner with a tolerably composed countenance, a good appetite, and a well-digested scheme of vengeance in my mind. Uncle Ike was my only co-conspirator. I think I can see him now as he rolled back against the garden fence to laugh as I unfolded my design.
"Ef you ain't the beater!" he chuckled, his pepper-and-salt poll tilted to one shoulder, and eyeing me with undisguised admiration. "An' you say nobody ain' put it into your hade?"
"I haven't said a word about it to anybody else, Uncle Ike. You'll help me,—won't you?"
He doubled himself up like a dyspeptic jack-knife, the ingenuity of the plot gaining upon his imagination.