“Please m’m!” she cried almost before she got into the room, “there’s a carriage-and-pair just called——”
“Anything in it?” Mother said.
“Two ladies, m’m, and here’s their cards.”
I took one and Aunt Gerty the other.
“Dowager Countess of Fylingdales!” Aunt Gerty read, as if she was Lady Macbeth saying, “Out, dammed spot!”
The card I held was for Lady Scilly, and there was one for Lord Scilly, but it had got under the drawers.
“I said you wasn’t dressed, ma’am,” Sarah said, looking at Mother’s apron all over egg, and her rolled-up sleeves.
“No more I am,” said Mother, laughing. “Don’t look so disappointed, Gerty. I couldn’t have seen them.”
“But you shouldn’t have said your mistress wasn’t dressed, Sarah,” said Aunt Gerty. “It isn’t done like that in good houses. You should have said, ‘My mistress is gone out in the carriage.’”
“But that would have been a lie!” argued Sarah, “and I’m sure I don’t want to go to hell even for a carriage-and-pair.”