So, the great marriage-day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her.  But not Miss Pupford only went away; for Miss Pupford’s assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit to an aged uncle—­though surely the venerable gentleman couldn’t live in the gallery of the church where the marriage was to be, thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens—­and yet Miss Pupford’s assistant had let out that she was going there.  Where the cook was going, didn’t appear, but she generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that she was bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office that rendered new ribbons necessary to her best bonnet, and also sandals to her shoes.

“So you see,” said the housemaid, when they were all gone, “there’s nobody left in the house but you and me, Miss Kimmeens.”

“Nobody else,” said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a little sadly.  “Nobody!”

“And you wouldn’t like your Bella to go too; would you, Miss Kimmeens?” said the housemaid. (She being Bella.)

“N-no,” answered little Miss Kimmeens.

“Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not; ain’t she, Miss Kimmeens?”

“Don’t you like it?” inquired Kitty.

“Why, you’re such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of your Bella to make objections.  Yet my brother-in-law has been took unexpected bad by this morning’s post.  And your poor Bella is much attached to him, letting alone her favourite sister, Miss Kimmeens.”

“Is he very ill?” asked little Kitty.

“Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens,” returned the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes.  “It was but his inside, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he wouldn’t answer.”  Here the housemaid was so overcome that Kitty administered the only comfort she had ready:  which was a kiss.

“If it hadn’t been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens,” said the housemaid, “your Bella would have asked her to stay with you.  For Cook is sweet company, Miss Kimmeens, much more so than your own poor Bella.”

“But you are very nice, Bella.”

“Your Bella could wish to be so, Miss Kimmeens,” returned the housemaid, “but she knows full well that it do not lay in her power this day.”

With which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on one side.

“If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook,” she pursued, in a contemplative and abstracted manner, “it might have been so easy done!  I could have got to my brother-in-law’s, and had the best part of the day there, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them need never have known it.  Not that Miss Pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being tender-hearted.  Hows’ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens,” said the housemaid, rousing herself, “is forced to stay with you, and you’re a precious love, if not a liberty.”