Polly stood quite still, even forgetting to deposit the tray.

“Set the tray down, I told you,” repeated Mrs. Chatterton sharply, “and then get the basin of water.”

“I will call Hortense,” said Polly quietly, placing the tray as desired.

“Hortense has gone to the apothecary’s,” said Mrs. Chatterton, “and I will not have one of the other maids; they are too insufferable.”

And indeed Polly knew that it would be small use to summon one of them, as Martha, the most obliging, had airily tossed her head when asked to do some little service for the sick woman that very morning, declaring, “I will never lift another finger for that Madame Chatterton.”

“My neck aches, and my side, and my head,” said Mrs. Chatterton irritably; “why do you not do as I bid you?”

For one long instant, Polly hesitated; then she turned to rush from the room, a flood of angry, bitter feelings surging through her heart, more at the insufferable tone and manner, than at what she was bidden to do.  Only turned; and she was back by the side of the bed, and looking down into the fretful, dictatorial old face.

“I will bathe you, Mrs. Chatterton,” she said gently; “I’ll bring the water in a minute.”

XI

Poor Polly!

“You are very awkward, child,” observed Mrs. Chatterton to Polly on her knees, “and abrupt.  Move the sponge more slowly; there, that is better.”

Polly shifted her position from one aching knee to another, set her lips closer together, and bent all her young energies to gentler effects.  But Mrs. Chatterton cried out irritably: 

“Have you never taken care of a sick person, pray tell, or is it all your back-country training that makes you so heavy-handed?”

“I helped mother take care of Phronsie when she had the measles, and Ben and Joel,” said Polly, “five years ago; we haven’t been sick lately.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. Chatterton, not very elegantly.  But what was the use of a fine manner when there was nobody but a little back-country maiden to see it?

“I shall have to endure it till Hortense returns,” she said with a sigh; “besides, it is my duty to give you something useful to do in this house.  You should be thankful that I allow you to bathe me.”

Polly’s eyes flashed, and the hand holding the sponge trembled.  Nothing but the fear of troubling Mamsie, and dear old Mr. King whose forbearance was worn to the finest of threads, kept her at her post.

“Now get the violet water,” said Mrs. Chatterton, with an air she would never have dared employ towards Hortense; “it is the bottle in the lower left-hand corner of the case.”

Polly got up from her knees, and stiffly stumbled across the room to the case of silver-mounted toilet articles:  in her tumult bringing away the upper right-hand corner vial.