At last Martha asked at what time we breakfasted.
"At half-past seven, precisely," I answered. "Ernest is very punctual
about breakfast. The other meals are more irregular."
"That is very late," she returned. "Father rises early and needs his
breakfast at once."
I said I would see that he had it as early as he liked, while I
foresaw that this would cost me a battle with the divinity who
reigned in the kitchen.
"You need not trouble yourself. I will speak to my brother about it,"
she said.
"Ernest has nothing to do with it," I said, quickly.
She looked at me in a speechless way, and then there was a long
silence, during which she shook her head a number of times. At last
she inquired: "Did you make the bread we had on the table to-night?"
"No, I do not know how to make bread," I said, smiling at her look of
horror.
"Not know how to make bread?" she cried. The very spirit of mischief
got into me, and made me ask:
"Why, can you?"
Now I know there is but one other question I could have asked her,
less insulting than this, and that is:
"Do you know the Ten Commandments?"
A spinster fresh from a farm not know how make bread, to be sure!
But in a moment I was ashamed and sorry that I had yielded to myself
so far as to forget the courtesy due to her as my guest, and one just
home from a scene of sorrow, so I rushed across the room, seized her
hand, and said, eagerly:
"Do forgive me! It slipped out before I thought!"
She looked at me in blank amazement, unconscious that there was
anything to forgive.
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