“Hetty!” said a voice from the dining-room, “Hetty, isn’t it time to ring the bell?”
“In a minute, mother, as soon as I can dish up the meat and potatoes,” answered the girl, stepping out and drawing Floy with her. “Mother, this is Miss Kemper, the young lady that was expected to come from the West, you know.”
Mrs. Goodenough, as Floy afterward learned to call her, was a heavy-featured, gray-haired, sallow woman, as dull, absent-minded, and slow as Hetty was bright and quick.
“Ah, yes; how d’ye do? But I didn’t know there was a train came in so early,” she said, shaking hands with Floy. “Ring that bell quick, Patsy!” as a step was heard in the hall, slipshod but hasty and impatient.
Mrs. Goodenough waddled into the kitchen (she was stout in figure and clumsy in gait). Patsy seized the bell, and Hetty came hurrying in with a dish of baked potatoes just as the door opened and another woman, alert in movement and sharp of feature, with a keen black eye, hair in crimping-pins, and a tall, wiry figure arrayed in a calico wrapper, clean and fresh but evidently thrown on in haste, came bustling in.
“Sarah, it’s getting late, and you know how the work’s hurrying us—six or eight dresses to be made this week, and—ah?” in a tone of inquiry as her eye fell upon Floy standing silently there.
Patsy’s bell was clanging in the hall.
“Miss Kemper, Aunt Prue!” shouted Hetty. “Breakfast’s ready now, and it isn’t quite six yet.”
Floy received a hasty nod, the black eyes scanning her from head to foot; then dashing into the hall, Mrs. Sharp seized Patsy with one hand, the bell with the other.
“That’s enough! will you never learn when to stop? How do you suppose Mr. Sharp can sleep through all this din? Come, girls, make haste!” and she turned into the dining-room again, followed by four apprentices, to whom the last words were addressed as they came flying down the stairs.