“They did not scruple to send you an unstamped letter, these people, who are of the very best; but perhaps you think the stamp rubbed off in the post?”
“No’m, I don’t think that, there was never no stamp on at all, there was no gummy corner, nor nothin’. ’Tis lucky that my husband had more sense than me an’ took it in. The ladies gave it to some one to post, I guess, with a penny for a stamp, and the stamp was never put on. Save a penny like that! Them!” Mrs. Tregennis hurried from the room with her heavily loaded tray.
To Mrs. Tregennis the hours of that Thursday passed very slowly. The rooms for the ladies had been cleaned and prepared the day before, but more than once she went into the upstairs sitting-room, and tried to improve the hang of the curtains and the arrangement of the flowers that looked so many more than they really were because of their reflection in the overmantel glass. Once she ran hurriedly upstairs and again inspected her drawer of bedroom towels to make quite sure that she had put out the biggest and the best. Once, too, she walked into the ladies’ bedroom and rather anxiously inspected the cake of pink soap that fitted so neatly into the perforated tray of the soap-dish, and wondered if it was just exactly what they would really like the best of all. In the middle of the morning two trunks arrived as luggage in advance. When these had been carried upstairs and placed at the foot of the bed the carman’s foot-marks were removed with a duster, and nothing further remained to be done.
When Tommy burst in from school soon after four o’clock, his first breathless words were, “Have my ladies come yet, Mammy?” and so restless and excited was he that he could scarcely be induced to have tea.
When he was released from the table he ran out into the alley, and, refusing all invitations to dig on the sands, he played round his own doorway so that he might catch the first glimpse of his ladies when they actually did arrive. Just before half-past six, however, when he peeped round the corner and saw them coming, he was seized with shyness and ran hastily into the kitchen, and hid in the cupboard among the coals.
Before they could shake hands Mrs. Tregennis must give hers a last wipe on the oven cloth, while Tregennis rubbed both of his slowly up and down the legs of his trousers. Then there was much talking, but as they all talked together no one heard distinctly anything that anyone else said.
When finally one voice arose above the rest it belonged to the Blue Lady. “Oh, how deliciously those chops are sizzeling; we’re just as hungry as hunters.” Then, “Where’s Tommy?” she asked.
Mrs. Tregennis looked around puzzled, then put her head out of the window. “He was here but a minute since, excited as could be.”
Then she bethought herself of the cupboard and opened the door revealing her handsome among the coals. In his eagerness to hide he had fallen, and hands and face were black with coal-dust.