"We can afford to treat ye like the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown 'air!" She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she retired.

The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,--strong, invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.
"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked to Helmsley in a low tone.

"She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured for _me_,--it's for _you_! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy ter yer!--shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!" Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing.

He knew that in the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was safer than speech.
Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.
"They've got their soup," she announced, "an' they're eatin' of it up!" "Is the old man taking it ?" asked Miss Tranter.
"Yes'm.

An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers." Miss Tranter ceased to stare at the fire, and stared at her domestic instead.
"Prue," she said solemnly, "that old man is a gentleman!" Prue's round eyes opened a little more roundly.
"Lor', Mis' Tranter!" "He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times.