“Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma’am?” said Mrs. Crupp. “Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or should I brile a rasher? Ain’t there nothing I could do for your dear aunt, Mr. Copperfull?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” returned my aunt. “I shall do very well, I thank you.”
Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room. “Dick!” said my aunt. “You know what I told you about timeservers and wealth-worshippers?”
Mr. Dick—with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it—returned a hasty answer in the affirmative.
“ Mrs. Crupp is one of them,” said my aunt. “Barkis, I’ll trouble you to look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for I don’t fancy that woman’s pouring-out!”
I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this arrival than a stranger might have supposed. I noticed how her eye lighted on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied; and what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on within her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and composure. I began to reflect whether I had done anything to offend her; and my conscience whispered me that I had not yet told her about Dora. Could it by any means be that, I wondered!
As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down near her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy