er Waller. I have just come to see how you are
getting on," continued the girl, as she advanced towards the table,
scanning everything that it held, "and whether I can--oh, my!" she burst
out, snatching up her apron and holding it to her mouth to try and
stifle back an immoderate burst of laughter.

The next moment she had rushed out of the room, this time allowing the
door to bang behind her, while Waller jumped up, staring hard at the
partly closed bookcase door as if to read there the cause of the girl's
quick exit.

"She must have been watching at the keyhole," he muttered to himself,
for a guilty conscience needs no accuser, "and she's gone to tell cook."

But it was something quite different that Bella was telling her
fellow-servant, after throwing herself down in one of the kitchen chairs
and laughing hysterically till she cried and choked.

"Oh, don't be such a stupid," grunted plump Martha, standing over her
and thumping her back. "What is it you have seen? Don't keep it all to
yourself. What are you laughing at? You will have a fit directly."

"Oh! oh! oh-h-oh!" sobbed Bella. "Do leave off, cook. You _hurt_."

"Then tell me what you are laughing at."

"He's--he's--he's--oh, dear!--oh, dear! I never saw such a sight in my
life! I hadn't been gone more than five minutes when--ho! ho! ho! ho!"

"Look here," cried cook, who was enjoying her fellow-servant's mirth,
and who began thumping again at poor Bella's back, "do you want me to
thump it out of you?"

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Do a-done, cook!" sobbed out Bella,
hysterically and incoherently. "Not more than five minutes, and his
mouth so full he couldn't speak, and his eyes staring at me out of his
head, and he had gobbled up nearly all the sausage cakes and all the hot
bread, and I don't know how many cups of tea he had had, but the one
before him was quite full. But oh, Martha, do a-done, and let me laugh
it out, or I shall die!"

Plump Martha's face was wreathed with smiles, and she chuckled a little
audibly at her fellow-servant's mirth, while her pleasant little vanity
was agreeably tickled at the appreciation of her culinary efforts all
the while.

"You are such a stupid, Bella," she said, good-humouredly. "When once
you begin to laugh you never know how to leave off. I don't see
anything to laugh at. Poor dear boy, he'd had no dinner, and only a
morsel of cold pork-pie since breakfast, and he does like my cakes."

CHAPTER