“Kate, you wretch!” cried a voice behind her. She drew in her head, to find her mistress in the kitchen with the candlestick in her hand.
“Oh, m'em,” cried the maid, no way abashed, banging up the window and hurriedly crushing her more ample parts under the final hooks and eyes of her morning wrapper—“oh, m'em, what a start you gave me! I'm all in a p-p-palpitation. I was just takin' one mouthful of air and thinkin' to myself yonder in the Gaelic that it was time for me to be comin' in and risin' right.”
“A happy New Year to you, Kate MacNeill,” said the mistress, taking her hand.
“Just that, just that! and the same to you yourself, Miss Dyce. I'm feeling fine; I'm that glad with everything,” said the maid, in some confusion at this unusual relation with her mistress. She shook the proffered hand rapidly from side to side as if it were an egg-switch.
“And see and get the fires on quick now, like a good lass. It would never do to be starting the New Year late—it would be unlucky. I was crying to you yonder from the stair-head, and wondering if you were ill, that you did not answer me so quickly as you do for ordinar'.”
“Ill, Miss Dyce!” cried the maid, astounded. “Do you think I'm daft to be ill on a New Year's Day?”
“After yon—after yon shortbread you ate yesterday I would not have wondered much if you were,” said Miss Dyce, shaking her head solemnly. “I'm not complaining, but, dear me! it was an awful lump; and I thought it would be a bonny-like thing, too, if our first-foot had to be the doctor.”
“Doctor! I declare to goodness I never had need of a doctor to me since Dr. Macphee in Colonsay put me in order with oil and things after I had the measles,” exclaimed the maid, as if mankind were like wag-at-the-wa' clocks, and could be guaranteed to go right for years if you blew through them with a pair of bellows or touched their works with an oily feather.
“Never mind about the measles just now, Kate,” said Miss Dyce, with a meaning look at the black-out fire.
“Neither I was mindin' them, m'em—I don't care a spittle for them; it's so long ago I would not know them if I saw them; I was just—”