The Blue Lady lost patience. “They were for Tommy,” she said, quite sharply; “but I don’t think they’re very good; they don’t seem quite fresh, so you can have them if you like.”
The child, completely satisfied, went downstairs to show her mother the gift.
“It’s no good,” said the Blue Lady, ashamed of her unkindness to a little child. “She’s exactly like her mother and I cannot like her.”
For dinner the ladies had ordered ox-tail soup, lamb and green peas, gooseberry tart and cream. So much Mrs. Radford learned when she peeped in at the kitchen door as Mrs. Tregennis was dishing up the second course.
“What very extravagant dinners they order.”
Mrs. Tregennis took no notice of the remark, but, stooping, closed the oven door, and, digging a fork into the joint, lifted it from the tin to the hot dish waiting on the fender. At that moment the upstairs bell rang. Mrs. Tregennis answered it and returned with the plates and the soup-tureen.
Mrs. Radford raised the lid of the tureen. “What delicious soup!” she remarked, “and what a lot they have left. They would never miss it, Mrs. Tregennis, if you would let me have some.”
There was no reply.
“Won’t you give me just a little—just enough for Annabel?”
Then Mrs. Tregennis spoke. “I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing!” she answered, indignantly. “Why, I wouldn’t take not even so much as a crumb of theirs, not even for my own Tommy, no, not if ’twas ever so!”