The Squire went over to Islip on some matter of business, taking Tod with him. Our children, Hugh and Lena, were spending the day with the little Letsoms, who would come back with them for the treat; so we had the house to ourselves. The white deal ironing-board under the kitchen window was raised on its iron legs; before it stood Mrs. Todhetley and Molly, busy with the mysteries of pastry-making and patty-pan filling. I sat on the edge of the board, looking on. The small savoury pies were done, and in the act of baking, a tray-load at a time; every now and then Molly darted into the back kitchen, where the oven was, to look after them. For two days the snow had come down thickly; it was falling still in great flakes; far and near, the landscape showed white and bright.
“Johnny, if you will persist in eating the jam, I shall have to send you away.”
“Put the jar on the other side then, good mother.”
“Ugh! Much jam Master Johnny would leave for the tarts, let him have his way,” struck in Molly, more crusty than her own pastry, when I declare I had only dipped the wrong end of the fork in three or four times. The jam was not hers.
“Mind you don’t give the young ones bread-and-scrape, Molly,” I retorted, catching sight of no end of butter-pats through the open door. At which advice she only threw up her head.
“Who is this, coming up through the snow?” cried the mater.
I turned to the window and made it out to be Mrs. Trewin: a meek little woman who had seen better days, and tried to get her living as a dressmaker since the death of her husband. She had not been good for very much since: never seemed quite to get over the shock. Going out one morning, as usual, to his duties as an office clerk, he was brought home dead. Killed by an accident. It was eighteen months ago now, but Mrs. Trewin wore deep mourning still.
Not standing upon ceremony down in our country, Mrs. Todhetley had her brought into the kitchen, going on with the tartlets all the same, while she talked. Mrs. Trewin was making a frock for Lena, and had come up to say that the trimming ran short. The mater told her she was too busy to see to it then, and was very sorry she had come through the snow for such a trifle.
“’Twas not much further, ma’am,” was her answer: “I had to go out to the school to fetch home Nettie. The path is so slippery, through the boys making slides, that I don’t altogether like to trust the child to go to and fro to school by herself.”
“As if Nettie would come to any harm, Mrs. Trewin!” I put in. “If she went down, it would only be a Christmas gambol.”