"Miss Rosy," she said, "will you please to go into the nursery and put away your dolls' things before tea. They're all over the table. I'd have done it in a minute, but you have your own ways and I was afraid of doing it wrong."
She spoke kindly and cheerfully.
"What a nice nurse!" thought Beata, with a feeling of relief—a sort of hope that Martha might help to make things easier for her somehow, especially as there was something very kindly in the way the maid began to help her to unfasten her jacket and lay aside her travelling things. To her surprise, Rosy made no answer.
"Miss Rosy, please," said Martha again, and then Rosy looked up crossly.
"'Miss Rosy, please,'" she said mockingly. "You're just putting on all that politeness to show off. No, I won't please. You can put the dolls away yourself, and, if you do them wrong, it's your own fault. You've seen lots of times how I do them."
"Miss Rosy!" said Martha, as if she wanted to beg Rosy to be good, and her voice was still kind, though her face had got very red when Rosy told her she was "showing off."
Beata stood in shocked silence. She had had no idea that Rosy could speak so, and, sad as it was, Martha did not seem surprised.
"I wonder if she is often like that," thought little Bee, and in concern for Rosy her own troubles began to be forgotten.
They went into the nursery to tea. Martha had cleared away Rosy's things and had done her best to lay them as the little girl liked. But before sitting down to the table, Rosy would go to the drawer where they were kept, and was in the middle of scolding at finding something different from what she liked when Colin and Fixie came in to tea.
"I say, Rosy," said Colin, "you might let us have one tea-time in peace,—Bee's first evening."