Part 43 (1/2)

”She,” said Mary Ann.

Lancelot was taken aback. ”She!” he repeated.

”Yessir,” said Mary Ann, with a dawning suspicion that her own vocabulary was going to be vindicated; ”whenever I said 'she' she made me say ''er,'

and whenever I said 'her' she made me say 'she.' When I said 'her and me'

she made me say 'me and she,' and when I said 'I got it from she,' she made me say 'I got it from ''er.'”

”Bravo! A very lucid exposition,” said Lancelot, laughing. ”Did she set you right in any other particulars?”

”Eessir--I mean yessir,” replied Mary Ann, the forbidden words flying to her lips like prisoned skylarks suddenly set free. ”I used to say, 'Gie I thek there broom, oo't?' 'Arten thee goin' to?' 'Her did say to I.' 'I be goin' on to bed.' 'Look at--'”

”Enough! Enough! What a memory you've got! Now I understand. You're a country girl.”

”Eessir,” said Mary Ann, her face lighting up. ”I mean yessir.”

”Well, that redeems you a little,” thought Lancelot, with his whimsical look. ”So it's missus, is it, who's taught you c.o.c.kneyese? My instinct was not so unsound, after all. I dare say you'll turn out something n.o.bler than a c.o.c.kney drudge.” He finished aloud, ”I hope you went a-milking.”

”Eessir, sometimes; and I drove back the milk-trunk in the cart, and I rode down on a pony to the second pasture to count the sheep and the heifers.”

”Then you are a farmer's daughter?”

”Eessir. But my feyther--I mean my father--had only two little fields when he was alive, but we had a nice garden, with plum trees, and rose bushes, and gillyflowers--”

”Better and better,” murmured Lancelot, smiling. And, indeed, the image of Mary Ann skimming the meads on a pony in the suns.h.i.+ne, was more pleasant to contemplate than that of Mary Ann whitening the wintry steps.

”What a complexion you must have had to start with!” he cried aloud, surveying the not unenviable remains of it. ”Well, and what else did you do?”

Mary Ann opened her lips. It was delightful to see how the dull veil, as of London fog, had been lifted from her face; her eyes sparkled.

Then, ”Oh, there's the ground-floor bell,” she cried, moving instinctively toward the door.

”Nonsense; I hear no bell,” said Lancelot.

”I told you I always _hear_ it,” said Mary Ann, hesitating and blus.h.i.+ng delicately before the critical word.

”Oh, well, run along then. Stop a moment--I must give you another kiss for talking so nicely. There! And--stop a moment--bring me up some coffee, please, when the ground floor is satisfied.”

”Eessir--I mean yessir. What must I say?” she added, pausing troubled on the threshold.

”Say, 'Yes, Lancelot,'” he answered recklessly.

”Yessir,” and Mary Ann disappeared.

It was ten endless minutes before she reappeared with the coffee. The whole of the second five minutes Lancelot paced his room feverishly, cursing the ground floor, and stamping as if to bring down its ceiling.

He was curious to know more of Mary Ann's history.

But it proved meagre enough. Her mother died when Mary Ann was a child; her father when she was still a mere girl. His affairs were found in hopeless confusion, and Mary Ann was considered lucky to be taken into the house of the well-to-do Mrs. Leadbatter, of London, the elder sister of a young woman who had nursed the vicar's wife. Mrs. Leadbatter had promised the vicar to train up the girl in the way a domestic should go.

”And when I am old enough she is going to pay me wages as well,”

concluded Mary Ann, with an air of importance.