Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/117

 "Bless me! is not that blister done yet? Why, you began it half an hour ago!" Mrs. Ardley saw a cloud gathering on Betsy's brow, and she added, "I know the sick must be taken care of. Give Lucy plenty of lemonade, or anything in the house she wants." Betsy perceived Mrs. Ardley was very bountiful of what cost her neither exertion nor sacrifice. Is it surprising that such generosity excites little gratitude?

Betsy had scarcely reached the top of the stairs when the bell again rung most importunately. "Oh, Betsy, I entirely forgot that Mr. Ardley wishes dinner half an hour earlier than usual—run down and tell Ferris. Dear me! I gave David leave to go out—you'll have the table to set—please, Betsy—oh, how inconvenient it is to have servants getting sick—mine always are."

The next morning Lucy was worse. "I shall never be better, Betsy," she said, "while I have such dreadful nights. Mrs. Ferris comes to bed so tipsy, and I loathe her so that I get upon the very edge of the bed, and she snores so horribly that I cannot close my eyes—but pray, don't tell Mrs. Ardley—she knows as well as we do Mrs. Ferris drinks, and it will just end in my being sent home to my mother, and that I could not bear."

"So your life is to be lost, and all of us burnt up alive, maybe, just because she can tickle their palates; well, it's a comical world!"

"If I only might have any little bit of a bed on your floor, Betsy!" Betsy explored the house in vain for extra servants' bedding. She was, however, a woman of expedients. If she had been in a log hut in the western wilderness, she could have