Ellen beamed. "He's got awful pretty prominent eyes," she said.
"Yes," said Elizabeth. "I expect you're very proud of him, Ellen. Is he your eldest brother?"
"Yes, mum. He's a butcher in the Co-operative and awful steady."
Elizabeth handed back the card.
"Thank you very much for letting me see it. How is your little sister's foot?"
"It's keepin' a lot better, and ma mother said I was to thank you for the toys and books you sent her."
"Oh, that's all right. I'm so glad she's better. When you're doing my room to-day remember the mirrors, will you? This weather makes them so dim."
"Yes, mum," said Ellen cheerfully, as she went to her day's work.
Elizabeth found Marget waiting for her. She had laid out on the kitchen-table all the broken meats from the pantry and was regarding the display gloomily. Marget had been twenty-five years with the Setons and was not so much a servant as a sort of Grand Vizier. She expected to be consulted on every point, and had the gravest fears about Buff's future because Elizabeth refused to punish him.
"It's no' kindness," she would say; "it's juist saftness. He should be wheepit."