"O, that's no account! I did it climbin' trees. Barby tried to scour it off, but it sticks. I don't care—soldiers' hands ain't white, are they, Pincher?"
The pretty dog at Horace's feet shook his ears, meaning to say,—
"I should think not, little master; soldiers have very dirty hands, if you say so."
"Come," said Grace, who was tired of gazing at the far-off star-land; "let's go down and see if Barbara hasn't made that candy: she said she'd be ready in half an hour."
They went into the library, which opened upon the balcony, through the passage, down the front stairs, and into the kitchen, Pincher following close at their heels.
It was a very tidy kitchen, whose white floor was scoured every day with a scrubbing-brush. Bright tin pans were shining upon the walls, and in one corner stood a highly polished cooking-stove, over which Barbara Kinckle, a rosy-cheeked German girl, was stooping to watch a kettle of boiling molasses. Every now and then she raised the spoon with which she was stirring it, and let the half-made candy drip back into the kettle in ropy streams. It looked very tempting, and gave out a delicious odor. Perhaps it was not strange that the children thought they were kept waiting a long while.
"Look here, Grace," muttered Horace, loud enough for Barbara to hear; "don't you think she's just the slowest kind?"
"It'll sugar off," said Grace, calmly, as if she had made up her mind for the worst; "don't you know how it sugared off once when ma was making it, and let the fire go 'most out'?"
"Now just hear them childers," said good-natured Barbara; "where's the little boy and girl that wasn't to speak to me one word, if I biled 'em some candies?"
"There, now, Barby, I wasn't speaking to you," said Horace; "I mean I wasn't talking to her, Grace. Look here: I've heard you spell, but you didn't ask me my Joggerphy."