“What! Nothink at all? Goin’ to fast to-morrow, eh? Or to live on stooed hatmospheric hair with your own sauce for gravey—hey?”
“No, we doesn’t want nothink,” repeated the domestic, stoutly. “Missus said so, an’ she bid me ask you if you’d like a cup of tea?”
The butcher’s boy opened his mouth and eyes in amazement. To have his own weapons thus turned, as he thought, against him by one who was usually rather soft and somewhat shy of him, took him quite aback. He recovered, however, quickly, and made a rush at the girl, who, as before, attempted to shut the door with a bang, but the boy was too sharp for her. His foot prevented her succeeding, and there is no doubt that in another moment he would have forcibly entered the house, if he had not been seized from behind by the collar in the powerful grasp of Edgar Berrington, who sent him staggering into the street. The boy did not wait for more. With a wild-Indian war-whoop he turned and fled.
Excited, and, to some extent, exasperated by this last visit, the small domestic received Edgar with a one-third timid, one-third gleeful, and one-third reckless spirit.
“What did the boy mean?” asked Edgar, as he turned towards her.
“Please, sir, ’e wouldn’t ’ave a cup of tea, sir,” she replied meekly, then, with a gleam of hope in her eyes—“Will you ’ave one, sir?”
“You’re a curious creature,” answered Edgar, with a smile. “Is Miss Pritty at home?”
“No, sir, she ain’t.”
This answer appeared to surprise and annoy him.
“Very odd,” he said, with a little frown. “Did she not expect me?”