“If you’ve done well with your eggs it’s more than I did with my butter,” she said. “Dame Margery, the housekeeper from the castle, says she’ll take no more from me if I can’t promise as much as last year. She doesn’t like to go changing about for her butter, she says; and mine was enough for the ladies.”
“I’m sure you’ve enough for two ladies still,” said Chloe.
“Yes; but if I don’t keep a little for my other customers, they won’t come back to me when I have plenty again,” answered her sister, who seemed determined to look on the black side of things.
Then, unluckily, in spite of Chloe’s care, the cold and the damp of the chimney made the fire smoke; great clouds puffed out, almost filling the kitchen.
“I wish you had let me go to bed,” said Arminel hastily; and Chloe’s patience being exhausted, she retorted by calling her sister unkind and ungrateful.
The smoke was very disagreeable, no doubt. Arminel opened the window wide to let it clear off. The wind was blowing from the forest which lay on this side of the house. All looked dark and gloomy, and Arminel gave a little shiver as she glanced out. Suddenly she started.
“Chloe,” she said, “did you hear that?”
“What?” said Chloe.
“A cry—yes, there it is again, as if some one was in great trouble.”
Chloe heard it too, but she was feeling rather sulky and contradictory.