"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--" "It is _good_ enough, Fanny," urged Kitty; "only, you see, we like it and can eat it, but Aunt Pike can't.

You know the last time she was here she said everything gave her indigestion--" "Them folks that is so afflicted," said Fanny, "should stay in their own 'omes, or the 'ospital.