"I haven't got her, darling."
She was back among the cushions, with her hands over her eyes.
"Haven't got her?"
"No, and I can't get her."
"Why, we must get her!" she cried, straightening up. "Why can't we get her?"
"Why," said I, gently as I could—"why, they are—cooking her."
Bessie's cheeks flamed. In less time than it takes to tell it she sprang from the carriage, burst open the kitchen door, ran against a toddling boy, blindly knocked him over, and faced Mrs. Beck.
"How did you dare do such a thing!" she almost screamed, seizing the astonished woman by her dress skirt. "She's mine! my own Coachy! and I'll carry her home in a pail!"
Jumping on a stool, she reached up to a shelf of tin-ware. Grasping a good-sized pail, she pulled it from its place in such a hurry that half a dozen milk-pans were dragged off with it. Clattering like crazy things they whirled to the floor.
"Put my Coachy in there!—put her in!" she commanded, setting the pail down hard on the stove, and twisting the cover off.