“You are a perfect heartbreak, Kate,” said the mistress. “I have rung for breakfast twice, and you never heard me, with your clattering out there to the letter-carrier. It’s a pity you cannot marry the glee party, as Mr Dyce calls him, and be done with it.”
“Me marry him!” cried the maid indignantly. “I think I see myself marryin’ a man like yon, and his eyes not neighbours.”
“That’s a trifle in a husband if his heart is good: the letter-carrier’s eyes may—may skew a little, but it’s not to be wondered at, considering the look-out he has to keep on all sides of him to keep out of reach of every trollop in the town who wants to marry him.”
And leaving Kate speechless at this accusation, the mistress of the house took the letters from her hands and went to the breakfast-table with them.
She had read the contents of the post-card before she reached the parlour; its news dismayed her.
“Just imagine!” she cried. “Here’s that bairn on his way from Liverpool his lee-lone, and not a body with him!”
“What! what!” cried Mr Dyce, whose eyes had been shut to say the grace. “Isn’t that actor-fellow, Molyneux, coming with him, as he promised?”
Miss Dyce sunk in a chair and burst into tears, crushing the post-card in her hand.
“What does he say?” demanded her brother.
“He says—he says—oh, dear me!—he says ‘Pip, pip!’” quoth the weeping sister.