She said this to Alice, and Alice answered gently, as we are told
to do--

'I really am awfully sorry; we forgot about the headache. Don't be
cross, Mrs Pettigrew; we didn't mean to; we didn't think.'

'You never do,' she said, and her voice, though grumpy, was no
longer violent. 'Why on earth you can't take yourselves off for
the day I don't know.'

We all said, 'But may we?'

She said, 'Of course you may. Now put on your boots and go for a
good long walk. And I'll tell you what--I'll put you up a snack,
and you can have an egg to your tea to make up for missing your
dinner. Now don't go clattering about the stairs and passages,
there's good children. See if you can't be quiet this once, and
give the good gentleman a chance with his copying.'

She went off. Her bark is worse than her bite. She does not
understand anything about writing books, though. She thinks
Albert's uncle copies things out of printed books, when he is
really writing new ones. I wonder how she thinks printed books get
made first of all. Many servants are like this.

She gave us the 'snack' in a basket, and sixpence to buy milk with.
She said any of the farms would let us have it, only most likely it
would be skim. We thanked her politely, and she hurried us out of
the front door as if we'd been chickens on a pansy bed.