a piece out of saved-up spare ends of
breadths, left after some turn-round or make-over, I know! It's
faded, and it's homely; but it's spandy clean! I sha'n't let it stay
raveled long. And I've got things. Just wait till my trunk comes. My
ottoman, I mean. That's what it turns into. Have you got a stuffed
cover to your trunk, Katie?"

Kate lifted up her eyebrows for permission to break silence.

"Of course you can, when you're asked a question. You've had time
now for second thoughts. I wasn't going to let you fly right out
with discouragements."

"It is you that flies out with taking for granteds," said Kate
Sencerbox, in a subdued monotone of quietness. "I was only going to
remark that we had got neither cellar windows, nor attic skylights
after all. I'm favorably surprised with the accommodations. I've
paid four dollars a week for a great deal worse. And I wouldn't cast
reflections by arguing objections that haven't been made, if I were
the leader of this enterprise, Miss Bree."

"Kate! That's what I call real double lock-stitch pluck! That goes
back of everything. You needn't shut up any more. Now let's come
down and see about supper."

They had pinned on linen aprons, with three-cornered bibs; such as
they wore at their machines. When they came down into Mrs.
Scherman's room, that young matron said within herself,--"I wonder
if it's real or if we're in a charade! At any rate, we'll have a
real tea in the play. They do sometimes."

"What is the nicest, and quickest, and easiest thing to get, I
wonder?" she asked of her waiting ministers. "Don't say toast. We're
so tired of toast!"

"Do you like muffins and stewed oysters?" asked Bel Bree, drawing
upon her best experience.

"Very much," Mrs. Scherman answered.

And Kate, looking sharply on, delighted herself with the guarded
astonishment that widened the lady's beautiful eyes.

"Only we have neither muffins nor oysters in the house; and the
grocery and the fish-market are down round the corner, in Selchar
Street."

"I could go for them right off. What time do you have tea?"

Really, Asenath Scherman had never acted in a charade where her cues
were so unexpected.

"I wonder if I'm getting mixed up again," she thought. "Which _is_
the cook?"

Of course a cook never would have offered to go out and order
muffins and oysters. Mrs. Scherman could not have _asked_ it of the
parlor-maid.

Kate Sencerbox relieved her.

"I'll go, Bel," she interposed.