Page:Authors daughter v1.djvu/47

Rh so that the cups and saucers were of three different patterns, the plates of another, the butter served up in a saucer, and the chops displayed in a tin dish. Jessie was liberal in her administration of a plentiful supply of new milk, with a jug of cream for her father and Allan and the stranger, and also dealt out the sugar with a bountiful hand. The fire was at her back, which was not comfortable in such hot weather, but Allan had arranged a screen, so that it protected her. The fountain, filled with boiling water to replenish the vast teapot, bubbled on the fire, and the frying-pan which stood on the hob was occasionally visited by a large gray cat, who was as often driven away by Mrs. Lindsay, while three dogs stood round the table, and ate the bones which were thrown to them from time to time. One would think that this was a great breakfast to set before a small family, but it was not only the four Lindsays and their young guest who were assembled to eat it. At the lower end of the table sat the servants of the household. George Copeland, a good-looking Englishman, who had gone to Mr. Hammond's on the previous evening; Pat Murphy, who had been sent for the doctor, but had found him absent on a long journey to a distant patient; and Donald McClure, a thickset highland shepherd very recently imported from the North country.