CHAPTER IV.
For a week after the party Jacqueline lived in a kind of dream. She could do nothing but talk of the party. The whole current of her life had been disturbed. Since this one taste of excitement there was no satisfying her. The daily routine was going down to a solemn breakfast, and then getting through the forenoon as best she might, with her flowers, and her pets among the ducks and chickens, and romping with the little Beverley—for this unfortunate Jacqueline had no regular employments—and then the still more solemn three o’clock dinner, after which she practiced fitfully on the wheezy piano in the dark drawing-room; then a country walk with Judith, if the day was fine, coming back in time to watch the creeping on of the twilight before the sitting-room fire. This was the happiest time of the day to Jacqueline. She would sit flat on the rug, clasping her knees, and gazing into the fire until her mother would say, with a smile:
“What do you see in the fire, Jacky?”
“Oh, endless things—a beautiful young man, and a new piano, and a diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard’s, and—Oh, I can’t tell you!”
“Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do,” solemnly announced Simon Peter. “When folks sits fo’ de fire studyin’ ’bout nuttin’ ’tall, de evils an’ de sperrits dat’s ’broad come sneakin’ up ahine an’ show ’em things in de fire.”
General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been making at intervals for twenty-five years.
“Temple,” he screeched, “you may take your choice between that old ignoramus and me—between ignorance and science!”
“Ef ole marse was ter steal six leetle sweet ’taters an’ put ’em in he pocket,” began Delilah, undauntedly.
“Why don’t you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a pocketful?” retorted the doctor.