"Why do you think the servants left so sudden this morning ?" she went on.

"Do you really believe the housemaid had appendicitis?
Or the cook's sister had twins ?" She turned and gestured at her mistress with a long, pointed forefinger.

Her voice had a note of doom.
"I bet a cent the cook never had any sister--and the sister never had any twins," she said impressively.

"No, Miss Neily, they couldn't put it over on me like that! They were scared away.

They saw--It!" She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head, an Irish Cassandra who had prophesied the evil to come.
"Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Cornelia briskly, more shaken by the recital than she would have admitted.