to “us” than when—Dymock having
cleared away all that was his charge, and brought
all that Grandmamma required from the pantry—the
old lady established herself at one end of the table,
with two bowls of beautifully white wood, and a jug
of hot water before her, and a towel of fine damask
in her hand, and set to work daintily to rinse out
each cup and saucer in the first bowl, passing them
then into the fresh water of the second, and wiping
them—after they had stood to drip for a
moment or two on a small slab of wood made for the
purpose—most carefully with the little cloth.
It was nice to watch her—her hands looked
so white, and moved so nimbly, and—I had
forgotten to mention that—looked so business-like
with the brown holland cuffs braided in white which
she kept for this occasion, and always put on, with
the big holland apron to match, before she began operations.
Yes, it had been a treat to “us” merely
to watch her, and so you can fancy how very proud
Duke and Pamela felt when she at length allowed them,
each with a little towel, to wipe their own cups and
saucers. They had been promoted to this for some
months now, and no accident had happened; and on those
days—few and far between, it must be allowed—on
which they had not been found deserving of their breakfast
number two, I think the punishment of not “helping
Grandmamma to wash up” had been quite as great
as that of missing the treat itself. For very
often, while deftly getting through her task, Grandmamma
would talk so nicely to the children, telling them
stories of the time when she was a little girl herself,
and of all the changes between those far-away days
and “now”; of the strange, wonderful places
she had visited with Grandpapa; of cities with mosques
and minarets gleaming against the intense blue sky
of the East in the too splendid, scorching sunshine
that no one who has not seen it can picture to himself;
of rides—weary endless rides—night
after night through the desert; or voyages of months
and months together across the pathless ocean.
They would sit, the little brother and sister, staring
up at her with their great solemn blue eyes, as if
they would never tire of listening—how
wonderfully wise Grandpapa and Grandmamma must be!—“Surely,”
said little Pamela one day with a great sigh, “surely
Grandmamma must know everyfing;” while
Duke’s breast swelled with the thought that he
too, like his father and grandfather before him, would
journey some day to those distant lands, there, if
need were, like them “to fight for the king.”
For there were times at which “bruvver”
was quite determined to be a soldier, though at others—the
afternoon, for instance, when the young bull poked
his head through the hedge and shook it at him and
Pamela, and Duke’s toy-sword had unfortunately
been left at home in the nursery—he did
not feel quite so sure about it!
But on this particular morning the little pair were less interested and talkative than usual. They sat so quiet while Grandmamma made her arrangements that her attention was aroused.