It was the faithful maid Louisa—a grey-haired woman older than Miss Verinder, neat yet stately in her black dress and black silk apron; just such an efficient long-tried maid-housekeeper as one would expect such a mistress to have. Louisa was bringing them tea. At sight of her the white cat dropped heavily from its easy chair, stalked forward, and rubbed itself against Miss Verinder’s ankles; while the grey parrot as promptly awoke, flapped its wings, and screamed. Tea meant something to these two dependents.
“Look sharp, Louisa,” said the parrot, expressing the wish of both in a gruff monotone. “Look sharp, Louisa. Louisa. Louisa.”
Louisa, bringing a collapsible table from the wall, smiled sedately.
“He always says that,” Miss Verinder explained. “It was taught to him a long time ago—and with great difficulty. Only as a joke,” she added. “For Louisa is always up to time—very much on the spot, as you young people say.”
Louisa opened the table in front of her mistress, brought the tea tray with kettle and tea-pot; went out again and returned with trays carrying cakes, bread and butter, and so forth, which she placed on smaller tables; finally brought a silver tea-caddy, and lit the lamp under the kettle.
“It is just on the boil, miss.”
“Thank you, Louisa.”
Then Miss Verinder made the tea. Mildred watched her, fascinated although preoccupied; it was all so neat and careful and methodic. “One spoonful for you and one for me.” After warming the tea-pot with a very little hot water, Miss Verinder was using not a spoon but a queer little silver shovel to put in the tea. “One for the pot—and one for luck! Now, dear, you see that bolt beneath the kettle? Pull it out for me, will you? That’s it.” And for a moment she was almost invisible as the steam rose. “Louisa never fails me. She knows the proverb that ‘If the water not boiling be, filling the tea-pot spoils the tea.’ One lump or two?”
In spite of emotion, or because of it, Mildred was hungry; and she ate freely of the thin bread and butter and the sugar-covered cake, till gradually these dainties seemed to turn to dust and ashes in her mouth while she listened to Miss Verinder’s advice.
Miss Verinder indeed displayed an astoundingly accurate comprehension of her young friend’s state of mind; but truly every word she said might have been heard with cordial approval by Mr. and Mrs. Parker themselves had they been present.