indignant, "You drive a bargain! I 'm thinking ten shillings was nearer what you paid."
"Four shillings to a penny!" says my mother.
"I daresay," says my sister; "but after you paid him the money I heard you in the little bedroom press. What were you doing there?"
My mother winces. "I may have given him a present of an old top-coat," she falters. "He looked ill-happit. But that was after I made the bargain."
"Were there bairns in the cart?"
"There might have been a bit lassie in the cart."
"I thought as much. What did you give her? I heard you in the pantry."
"Four shillings was what I got that chair for," replies my mother firmly. If I don't interfere there will be a coldness between them for at least a minute. "There is blood on your finger," I say to my mother.
"So there is," she says, concealing her hand.
"Blood!" exclaims my sister anxiously, and then with a cry of triumph, "I warrant it's jelly. You gave that lassie one of the jelly-cans!"
The Glasgow waiter brings up tea, and presently my sister is able to rise, and after a sharp fight I am expelled from the kitchen. The last thing I do as maid of all work is to lug upstairs the clothes-basket which has just arrived with the mangling.
