'Shall I set the tea, Miss?'

Miss Cookson turned from the window.

'Yes--bring it up--except the tea of course--they ought to be here at
any time.'

'And Mrs. Weston wants to know what time supper's to be?'

The fair-haired girl speaking was clearly north-country. She pronounced
the 'u' in 'supper,' as though it were the German 'u' in _Suppe_.

Miss Cookson shrugged her shoulders.

'Well, they'll settle that.'

The tone was sharp and off-hand. And the maid-servant, as she went
downstairs, decided for the twentieth time that afternoon, that she
didn't like Miss Cookson, and she hoped her sister, Mrs. Sarratt, would
be nicer. Miss Cookson had been poking her nose into everything that
afternoon, fiddling with the rooms and furniture, and interfering with
Mrs. Weston. As if Mrs. Weston didn't know what to order for lodgers,
and how to make them comfortable! As if she hadn't had dozens of brides
and bridegrooms to look after before this!--and if she hadn't given
them all satisfaction, would they ever have sent her all them
picture-postcards which decorated her little parlour downstairs?

All the same, the house-parlourmaid, Milly by name, was a good deal