“Next,” said Mrs. Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of abdication under protest from the culinary throne, “I would recommend examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of the potatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens will further become necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour.”
“As of course I do, Ma.”
Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot the other, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the third, and remembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made amends whenever she went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin, which made their chance of ever getting cooked exceedingly doubtful. But it was pleasant cookery too. Meantime Miss Lavinia, oscillating between the kitchen and the opposite room, prepared the dining-table in the latter chamber. This office she (always doing her household spiriting with unwillingness) performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps; laying the tablecloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down the glasses and saltcellars as if she were knocking at the door, and clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive of hand-to-hand conflict.
“Look at Ma,” whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and they stood over the roasting fowls. “If one was the most dutiful child in existence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn’t she enough to make one want to poke her with something wooden, sitting there bolt upright in a corner?”
“Only suppose,” returned Bella, “that poor Pa was to sit bolt upright in another corner.”
“My dear, he couldn’t do it,” said Lavvy. “Pa would loll directly. But indeed I do not believe there ever was any human creature who could keep so bolt upright as Ma, or put such an amount of aggravation into one back! What’s the matter, Ma? Ain’t you well, Ma?”