again.

II

Well, as I said, old Master and Mrs. Blake come back together from
the station, and from that day forward Mrs. Blake was unbearabler
than ever. And one day when Mr. Sigglesfield, the lawyer from Lewes,
was in the parlour, she a-talking to him after he'd been up to see
master (about his will, no doubt), she opened the parlour door sharp
and sudden just as I was bringing the tea for her to have it with
him like a lady--she opened the door sudden, as I say, and boxed my
ears as I stood, and I should have dropped the tea-tray but for me
being brought up a careful girl, and taught always to hold on to the
tea-tray with all my fingers.

I'm proud to say I didn't say a word, but I put down that tea-tray
and walked into the kitchen with my ear as hot as fire and my temper
to match, which was no wonder and no disgrace. Then she come into
the kitchen.

'You go this day month, Miss,' she says, 'a-listening at doors when
your betters is a-talking. I'll teach you!' says she, and back she
goes into the parlour.

But I took no notice of what she said, for Master Harry, he hired
me, and I would take no notice from any one but him.

Mr. Sigglesfield was a-coming pretty often just then, and Harry he
come to me one day, and he says--

'It's all right, Polly, and I must tell you because you're the same
as myself, though I don't like to talk as if we was waiting for dead
men's shoes. Long may he wear them! But father's told me he has left
everything to me, right and safe, though I am the second son. My
brother John never did get on with father, but when all's mine,
we'll see that John don't starve.'

And that day week old master was a corpse.

He was found dead in his bed, and the doctor said it was old age and
a sudden breaking up.

Mrs. Blake she cried and took on fearful, more than was right or
natural, and when the will was to be read in the parlour after the
funeral she come into the kitchen where I was sitting crying
too--not that I was fond of old master, but the kind of crying there
is at funerals is catching, I think, and besides, I was sorry for
Master Harry, who was a good son, and quite broken down.

'You can come and hear the will read,' she says, 'for all your
impudence, you hussy!'

And I don't know why I went in after her impudence, but I did. Mr.
Sigglesfield was there, and some of the relations, who had come a
long way to hear if they was to pull anything out of the fire; and
Master Harry wa