eyes, his smile more pronounced than ever.
"Now, Miss Molly, that's unkind of you."
I was in a rage.
"You appear to be oblivious of the fact that you were not even an acquaintance of my mother's; and as those persons she did not wish to know we do not care to know either, we shall be obliged by your leaving the house at your earliest possible convenience."
"Inside two seconds," added Dick.
"Perhaps you'd like a little assistance."
"It's always to be got."
These two remarks came from the twins. The Ogre laid down on the table what he had been holding. A very ugly look came on his face.
"This is an extraordinary world. I don't want to say anything offensive-"
"You can say what you like," cried Dick.
"I intend to, my lad."
"Don't call me your lad!"
The Ogre looked at Dick. And this time he gave him glance for glance. And I knew, from the expression which was on both their faces, that if we were not careful there was going to be trouble. I am not sure that my heart did not quail. The Ogre spoke as if my brother was unworthy even his contempt.
"Mr Dick Boyes, you appear to be under the impression that you are still at school, and can play the bully here, and treat me as I have no doubt you are in the habit of treating the smaller chaps there. You never made a greater mistake in the course of your short life. I am not the kind of man who will allow himself to be bullied by a hobbledehoy. I give you fair warning that if you treat me to any of your insolence the consequences will be on your own head-and other parts of you as well. Don't you flatter yourself that the presence of your little sisters will shield you from them."
"Throw something at him!"
"Down him with a pail of water!"
These suggestions proceeded from the twins. The Ogre turned his attention to them.
"If you two youngsters want a row you shall have it. And it will take the shape of the best licking you've ever had yet. You'll not be the first pair of unmannerly cubs I've had to take in hand."
I spoke; I wanted peace.
"There's not the slightest necessity for you to talk like that, Mr Miller. We're quite willing to believe that you're more than a match for any number of helpless children. But this is our house-"
"Indeed! Are you sure of that?"
"Of course I am sure. Do you mean to say that it is not?"
"At present I am saying nothing. I only advise you not to be too confident on a point on which some very disagreeable surprise may be in store for you."
"At anyrate, it is not your house. And all we ask-with all possible politeness-is that you should leave it."
"So that is all you ask. It seems to me to be a good deal."
"I don't know why it should. If you were a gentleman it would not be necessary to ask you twice."
"If I were a gentleman? I suppose if I came up to a school-girl's notion of what a gentleman ought to be-a sort of glorified schoolboy. I'm a good deal older than you, Miss Boyes-"
"You certainly are!"
"I certainly am, thank goodness!"
"I am glad you are thankful for something."
"I am glad that you are glad. As I was observing, when you interrupted me, I am older than you-for which I have every cause to be thankful-and my experience of the world has taught me not to pay much heed to a girl's display of temper. I undertook the management of affairs at your own request-"
"At my request? It's not true!"
A voice came from behind me. Looking round, there, in the doorway, was cook; and, on her heels, Betsy, the remaining housemaid. While-actually! – at the open window was Harris, the coachman, staring into the room as if what was taking place was the slightest concern of his. It was cook's voice which I heard, raised in accents of surprise, as if my point-blank denial of the Ogre's wicked falsehood had amazed her.
"Oh, Miss Molly, however can you say such a thing! When I heard you thanking Mr Miller with my own ears! And after all he has done for you. Well, I never did!"
"What did you hear?"
"I heard Mr Miller ask you in the hall if there was anything he could do for you, and you said you'd be very much obliged. Then he went on to say, I'm sure as kind as kind could be, that if you liked he'd take the whole trouble off your hands and manage everything; and you said,' Thank you.' And now for you to stand there and declare you didn't, and to behave to him like this after all he's done for you, in one so young I shouldn't have believed that it was possible."
In the first frenzy of my grief and bewilderment I had scarcely understood what I was saying to anybody. I remembered Mr Miller coming, as cook said, but that anything which had been said on either side had been intended to bear the construction which was being put upon it was untrue.
"I was not in a state of mind to understand much of what Mr Miller was saying, but I supposed that he was offering to assist in the arrangements for mother's funeral, and that offer I accepted."
"You did so. And what you'd have done without him I can't think. He arranged everything-and beautifully too. He's made the family more thought of in this neighbourhood than it ever was before. If ever helpless orphans had a friend in need you've had one in him-you have that."
Betsy had her say.
"He got us our black. There wouldn't have been a word said about it by anyone if it hadn't been for him."
"And he bought me two suits of clothes-blacks."
That was Harris, at the window.
"Bought you two suits of clothes!"
"Yes, miss," said cook, "we've all of us had full mourning, as was only decent. And I happen to know that Mr Miller paid for it. Indeed, he paid for everything. And considering the handsome way in which it has all been done, nothing stinted, nothing mean, a pretty penny it must have cost."
I exchanged glances with Dick and perceived that we were both of opinion that we had had enough of cook. I told her so.
"I have heard what you have had to say. And now, please, will you leave the room?"
"Excuse me, miss, but that's exactly what I don't intend to do-not till I know how I stand."
"How you stand?"
"I'll soon tell you how you stand," declared Dick. "You'll be paid a month's wages and you'll take yourself off."
"Oh, shall I, sir? That's just the sort of thing I thought you would say after the way you've been trying to behave to Mr Miller. And in any case I shouldn't think of stopping in the house with a pack of rude, ungrateful children. But I should like more than one month's wages, if it's the same to you. There's three months nearly due. I've not had one penny since I've been inside this house."
"Not since you've been inside this house?"
"Not one penny; and it's getting on for three months now."
"But I thought mother always paid you every month regularly."
"Did she, miss? Then perhaps you'll prove it. She never paid me; nor more she didn't Betsy. There's three months owing to you, isn't there, Betsy?"
"That there is."
"And so there is to you, isn't there, Harris?"
"Well-I don't know that it's quite three months."
"Why, you told me yourself as how it was."
Harris tilted his hat on one side and scratched his head as if to jog his memory.
"Well-it might be."
At this Dick fired up.
"It's all a pack of lies! I'm sure that my mother paid you your wages as they fell due, and that you're trying to cheat us."
Then it was cook's turn.
"Don't