“But, ma’am—” she said, and paused.
“Well, nurse!”
“I forgot, ma’am—indeed I did—to tell George to kill a sheep.”
Mrs Brook’s hands and work fell on her lap, and she looked from Mrs Scholtz to her visitor, and from her to the anxious Gertie, without speaking.
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mrs Merton.
“My dear,” replied Mrs Brook, with a touch of solemnity, “George Dally, our man, asked me this morning if he might go into the bush to cut rafters for the new kitchen, and I gave him leave, knowing nothing of what arrangements had been made before—and—and—in short, there’s not a man on the place, and—there’s nothing to eat.”
The four females looked at each other in blank silence for a few seconds, as the full significance of their circumstances became quite clear to them.
Mrs Merton was the first to recover.
“Now,” said she, while the Spartanic elements of her nature became intensified, “we must rise to this occasion like true women; we must prove ourselves to be not altogether dependent on man; we must face the difficulty, sink the natural tenderness of our sex, and—and—kill a sheep!”
She laid down the crackers on the table with an air of resolution, and rose to put her fell intent in execution.