"Very good, my lady," Emblem says, with a wonderfully sagacious look. And immediately she had poured the contents of the packet in the coffee. I took up the pot and said, with an air of notable severity:
"Of course, this coffee is as pure as possible, and could not be doctored any way? I think that is so, Emblem?"
"Oh! lord yes, ma'am; it is indeed," cries Emblem the immaculate.
"Well," says I, "so soon as we can be positive that the gentlemen are abed, and at their ease in slumber's lap, the fun shall get afoot."
We sat down by the hearth for the thereabouts of half an hour, that they might have ample time to attain this Elysian state. Later I wrapped the admirable Emblem up the very model of a plotter, and despatched her to the sentry on guard at the stable door, with the compliments of her mistress and a pot of coffee, to keep the cold out.
"For I'm sure, poor man," I piously observed, "it must be perishing out there in a frosty, wintry night of this sort."
"It must, indeed, my lady," Emblem says, with the gravity of a church; "and had I not better wait while he drinks it, ma'am, and bring the empty pot back? And had I not better put my carpet slippers on, and steal out carefully and without committing the faintest sound when I unbolt the kitchen door?"
"Emblem," cries I, dealing her a light box on
