Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/112

 "I see not why," began Sally, rather nettled.

Mistress Van Houten held up her hand humorously. "Spare me, I prithee!" she said in a good-natured voice. "Enough when I say 'tis so, my lass. Mayhap the lady is not to be over-envied, either! However, it be now our concern to get ye back safely to New Jersey once more!"

Rising from her chair, she passed out of a rear door into a little narrow hallway; and going to the top of the basement stairs, she called to someone below: "Cudje! Cudje!"

"Yas'm, Missy! Ah'm jes' cleanin' the brasses like yo' done tole me to!"

"Let the brasses wait, now, Cudje, and come upstairs. I wish ye!"

"Yas'm!"

Returning to the parlor. Mistress Van Houten placed her stout, middle-aged figure once more in her wing chair and awaited her Negro slave's appearance. Soon his shuffling step sounded upon the stairs, and a few moments later he was standing in front of her, showing the whites of his eyes as he rolled them curiously in Sally's direction. Sally, gazing at him in return, beheld an old colored man of uncertain years, clad in the knee breeches and the waistcoat of his dead master, for Mistress Van Houten was of thrifty Dutch extraction and saw no reason for purchasing lackey's uniform when she had a whole chestful of clothes upstairs. The only