“Lauks! the taties is done for.”
She sprang up and tore the pot off the fire. Tottie did the same to the kettle, while Gaff and Billy looked on and laughed.
“Never mind, here’s another kettle; fill it, Tot, fro’ the pitcher,” said Mrs Gaff; “it’ll bile in a few minutes, an’ we can do without taties for one night.”
On examination, however, it was found that a sufficient quantity of eatable potatoes remained in the heart of the burned mass, so the misfortune did not prove to be so great as at first sight it appeared to be.
“But now, Jess, let me pump you a bit. How comes it that ye’ve made such a ’xtraornary affair o’ the cottage?”
Mrs Gaff, instead of answering, hugged herself, and looked unutterably sly. Then she hugged Billy, and laughed. Tottie laughed too, much more energetically than there was any apparent reason for. This caused Billy to laugh from sympathy, which made Mrs Gaff break out afresh, and Gaff himself laughed because he couldn’t help it! So they all laughed heartily for at least two minutes—all the more heartily that half of them did not know what they were laughing at, and the other half knew particularly well what they were laughing at!
“Well, now,” said Gaff, after a time, “this may be uncommonly funny, but I’d like to know what it’s all about.”
Mrs Gaff still looked unutterably sly, and giggled. At length she said—
“You must know, Stephen, that I’m a lady!”
“Well, lass, you an’t ’xactly a lady, but you’re an uncommon good woman, which many a lady never wos, an’ never will be.”