“Thank you, Miss Priscilla; for I don’t care for either—I ain’t fond of fish. I guess I’ll take this.”
And Pet coolly leaned over, took the pie, and commenced vigorously cutting it up.
“I always make myself at home here, Miss Priscilla,” said Pet, speaking with her mouth full. “I know you ain’t fond of dainties; and nobody has such nice pigeon-pies as you have. You made it on purpose for me—didn’t you? I told you not to put yourself to any trouble on my account; but you would, you know. It’s real nice, Miss Priscilla; and I’d ask you to have some, only I know you don’t care about it.”
And all this time Pet had been crunching away, half choking herself in her haste.
And Miss Priscilla! What pen shall describe her feelings when she saw that cherished pigeon-pie—the making of which she had been deliberating about for a week before—that pigeon-pie, which had been uppermost in her mind all morning, vanishing before her eyes with such frightful rapidity? The English language is weak, is utterly powerless to describe how she felt. There she sat, as if turned to stone, her knife and fork still poised over the herring, speechless with horror and amazement, her eyes frozen to the face of Pet, while still her cherished pigeon-pie kept disappearing like mist before the morning sun.
“Do take your dinner, Miss Priscilla. Why, you ain’t eating anything, hardly,” said the wicked little wretch, as her fork went up and down from her plate to her mouth with the nearest approach to perpetual motion the horrified spinster had ever seen. “Just see how I’m getting along. This pie is really beautiful, Miss Priscilla. Oh, I love pigeon-pie; and only I know you’d rather see me eat it, I’d make you have a piece. There! I’ve finished!” said Pet, pushing aside the empty plate, and leaning back in her chair in a state almost “too full for utterance.” “Oh, that pigeon-pie was—was—actually divine! It just was, Miss Priscilla; and I’d come to see you every day if you’d only make me one like that.”
Without a word, but with a look that might have turned scarlet any face less hard than that of the wicked little elf, Miss Priscilla began her dinner. Nothing daunted, Pet sat and talked away unceasingly; but never a word came from the penknife-lips of Miss Priscilla Toosypegs. Then, when the slender repast was over, Aunt Bob was called up from the lower regions to clear away the service; and Pet sat in her chair, feeling it inconvenient to do anything but talk, just then; and talk she did, with a right good will, for two mortal hours; and still Miss Priscilla sat knitting and knitting away, and speaking never a word.
“The cross, cantankerous, sharp-nosed old thing!” muttered Pet, at last, getting tired of this unprofitable occupation. “The stingy old miser! to sit there sulking because I ate the only thing fit to eat on the table. I declare! if I haven’t a good mind to come every day and do the same, just for her ugliness! Oh, yaw-w-w! how sleepy I am! I guess I’ve done all the mischief I can do, just now, so I’ll go to sleep. I’d go home, only I said I wouldn’t go till dark, and I won’t, either! So, now, Pet, child, you drop into the ‘arms of Murphy,’ as Ranty says, as fast as you like.”
And curling herself up in her chair, with her head pillowed on her arm, Pet, in five minutes, was sound asleep.