"Oh!" said Thaddeus.

It was nine o'clock the next morning when Ellen opened her eyes.
Breakfast had been served a half-hour earlier, Jane and Bessie
having cooked some eggs, which Bessie ate alone, since Thaddeus and
Liscomb were compelled to take the eight-o'clock train to town,
hungry and forlorn. Liscomb was very good-natured about it to
Thaddeus, but his book-keeper had a woful tale to tell of his
employer's irritability when he returned home that night. As for
Thaddeus, he spoke his mind very plainly--to Liscomb. Bessie never
knew what he said, nor did any of the servants; but he said it to
Liscomb, and, as Liscomb remarked later, he seemed like somebody
else altogether while speaking, he was so fierce and determined
about it all. That night a telegram came from Liscomb, saying that
he had been unexpectedly delayed, and that, as there were several
matters requiring his attention at his own home, he thought he would
not be up again until Sunday.

Bessie was relieved, and Thaddeus was mad.

"We MUST have those rules," he said.

And so they were brought out. Ellen received them with stolid
indifference; Jane with indignation, if the slamming of doors in
various parts of the house that day betokened anything. Norah
accepted them without a murmur. It made no difference to Norah on
what day she swept the parlor, nor did she seem to care very much
because her "days at home" were shifted, so that her day out was
Friday instead of Thursday.