“’S not on’y on me he’s made a ’mpress’n,” returned the maid, carelessly. “He makes de same ’mpress’n on eberybody.”
“How d’you know?” asked Mary.
“’Cause I see,” answered the maid.
She turned her eyes on her mistress as she spoke, and immediately a transformation scene was presented. The eyes dwindled into slits as the cheeks rose, and the serious pout became a smile so magnificent that ivory teeth and scarlet gums set in ebony alone met the gaze of the beholder.
“Buttercup,” exclaimed Mary, stamping her little foot firmly, “it’s boiling over!”
She was right. Teeth and gums vanished. The eyes returned, so did the pout, and the pot was whipped off the fire in a twinkling, but not before a mighty hiss was heard and the head of the black maiden was involved in a cloud of steam and ashes!
“I told you so!” cried Mary, quoting from an ancient Manuscript.
“No, you di’n’t,” retorted her servitor, speaking from the depths of her own consciousness.
We refrain from following the conversation beyond this point, as it became culinary and flat.
Next day Dick Darvall, refreshed—and, owing to some quite inexplicable influences, enlivened—mounted Black Polly and started off alone for Traitor’s Trap, leaving his heart and a reputation for cool pluck behind him.