"You got out of bed the wrong side this morning. However, I must go
and tell Grace to go down at once, or father will be ringing for us."

"What did she say?" said Sally, when Maggie returned.

"'Tis all right; I got her to go, and she said she was always being
made a cat's-paw of. I assure you it wasn't easy to persuade her to go
down to father, but I told her she might be the means of averting a
very serious row."

"I suppose you said there was no counting on what answers I might make
to father?"

This was exactly what Maggie had said.

"Very well; you are always objecting to what I do, and the way I do
it. I wish you would go and do things yourself. You think of nothing
but yourself, or some young man you are after. I wouldn't do what you
did yesterday. I wouldn't go sneaking round the garden with a young
man I had never seen before."

Maggie shrugged her shoulders and went on dressing. Sally, who had
taken a seat on the bed, watched her. She thought how she might best
pursue the quarrel, but her stomach called her thoughts from her
sister, and she said: "I don't know how you feel, but I am dying of
hunger. What time is it now?"

"Nine o'clock."