Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/91

 the apple-green tea-pot. A sudden impulse made her cuddle the tea-pot to her breast, then passionately imprint a kiss on its shining round belly.

"Well, you're a silly, if ever there be's one," she said, in her grandmother's voice, and a tear splashed into the sugar basin.

At last she was ready, going down the stairs on swollen feet that had had to be forcibly compressed into unyielding, cheap shoes. In the kitchen, Mrs. Bye was glaring into a pot, from which issued a smell of burning. Queenie was sitting on the bottom step of the backstairs, a handkerchief bound about her head.

"I got a poh 'ead," she explained, raising her face, as Delight stepped over her.

"Got a sore head, have you? Pore little kid. One 'ud think you'd been to the ball. Well, I've got sore feet. How does your feet feel, Annie?"

"All right," replied Annie curtly.

Then she added, turning away with her tray in her hands:

"I've waited on your table. There's no need for you to come into the dining-room."

"But, Annie—"

"I say there's no need." She passed out of sight through the serving pantry.

Delight went and stood by the cook. "What's ailing Annie?" she whispered, so that Pearl would not hear, and putting her arm about Mrs. Bye's waist.

"Oh, I don't know, except that her heels are blistered."

"But she said her feet felt all right. And she won't let me go in the dining-room, and me hastening to dress oop and all."

Mrs. Bye spoke cryptically from the cloud of steam in which her head was enveloped. "She's in a state that's