“Ring the bell, dear,” said Carroll.
“You don't mind, Arthur, do you?” Mrs. Carroll asked, with a confident look at him.
Carroll smiled. “No, darling, only I hope none of you are really going hungry.”
They all laughed at him. “Soup and pudding are all one ought to eat in such hot weather,” Charlotte said, conclusively.
She even jumped up, ran to her father, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, to reassure him. “You darling papa,” she whispered in his ear, and when he looked at her tears shone in her beautiful eyes.
Carroll's own face turned strangely sober for a second, then he laughed. “Run back to your seat and get your pudding, sweetheart,” he said, with a loving push, as the maid entered.
People thought it rather singular that the Carrolls should have but one maid, but there were reasons. Carroll himself, when he first organized his Banbridge establishment, had expressed some dissent as to the solitary servant.
“Why not have more?” he asked, but Anna Carroll was unusually decided in her response.
“Amy and I have been talking it over, Arthur,” said she, “and we have decided that we would prefer only Marie.”
“Why, Anna?” Carroll had asked, with a frown.