“We—­we don’t reprimand her,” admitted Kitty.  “I am afraid she would be if we did,” she added honestly.

At that moment Dan burst into the room carrying a bottle.  “If you put some of this on the bruises,” he said, offering it to his aunt, “it’ll take the pain out like anything.  Jabez has it for the horses, and I’ve used it too; it is capital stuff.”

Mrs. Pike looked at the bottle with an eye which for a moment made Kitty quake, for Dan had brought it in with the fine crust of dirt and grease on it that it had accumulated during a long sojourn in the coach-house.  But something, perhaps it was Dan’s thoughtfulness, checked the severe remark which had almost burst from her lips.

“Thank you, Daniel,” she said, almost graciously.  “If you will ask one of the servants to clean the outside of the bottle, I shall be very glad of the contents, for I feel sure I have bruised myself severely.”

Betty was about to offer her pocket-handkerchief for the purpose when she remembered that she had not one with her, and so saved herself from further humiliation.

“At what hour do you dine—­or sup?” asked Mrs. Pike, turning to Kitty.

“We have supper at—­at—­oh, when father is home, or we—­or we come home, or—­when it is convenient.”

“Or when the servants choose to get it for you, perhaps,” said Aunt Pike sarcastically, but hitting the truth with such nicety that Kitty coloured.  “Well,” she went on, “if you can induce the maids to give us a meal soon I shall be thankful, for I have had nothing since my lunch; and I really feel, with all the agitation and shocks and blows I have had this day, as though I were nearly fainting.”

Poor Kitty, with a sinking heart, ran off at once, glad to escape, but overwhelmed with dread of what lay before her.  To her relief she found that Fanny had returned; but Fanny was hot with the first outburst of indignation at the news that awaited her, and was angry and mutinous, and determined to do nothing to make life more bearable for any of them.

In response to Kitty’s meek efforts to induce her to do her best to make the supper-table presentable, and not a shame to them all, she refused point-blank to stir a finger.

“There’s meat pasties, and there’s a gooseberry tart, and cheese, and cold plum-pudding, and cake, and butter and jam,” she said, enumerating thing after thing, designed, so it seemed to Kitty, expressly for the purpose of giving Aunt Pike a nightmare; “and I’ve got some fish for the master, that I am going to cook when he comes, and not before.”

“O Fanny, do cook it for Aunt Pike, please.  It is just the thing for her, and I am sure father would rather she should have it than that she should complain that she had nothing to eat—­”

“Well, Miss Kitty,” burst in Fanny indignantly, “I don’t know what you calls nothing.  I calls it a-plenty and running over; and if what’s good enough for us all isn’t good enough for Mrs. Pike, well—­”