s.

Pamela was determined to be pleased.

"How _right_ it all is," she told herself--"so entirely in keeping. All
so clean and--and sufficient. I am sure all the things we hang on
ourselves and round ourselves to please and beautify are very
clogging--this is life at its simplest," and she rang for coffee, which
came in a breakfast-cup and was made of Somebody's essence and boiling
water.

Pamela had gone to bed very early, there being absolutely nothing to sit
up for; and the bed was as hard as the nether millstone. As she put her
tired head on a cast-iron pillow covered by a cotton pillow-slip, and
lay crushed under three pairs of hard blankets, topped by a patchwork
quilt worked by Bella's mother and containing samples of the clothes of
all the family--from the late Mrs. Bathgate's wedding-gown of
puce-coloured cashmere to her youngest son's first pair of "breeks," the
whole smelling strongly of naphtha from the _kist_ where it had
lain--regretful thoughts of other beds came to her. She felt she had not
fully appreciated them--those warm, soft, embracing beds, with
satin-smooth sheets and pillow-cases smelling of lavender and other
sweet things, feather-light blankets, and rose-coloured eiderdowns.

She came downstairs in the morning to the bleak sitting-room filled with
a distaste for simplicity which she felt to be unworthy. For breakfast
there was a whole loaf on a platter, three breakfast rolls hot from the
baker, and the family toast-rack full of tough, damp toast. A large
pale-green duck's egg sat heavily in an egg-cup, capped, but not
covered, by a strange red flannel thing representing a cock's head,
which Pamela learned later was called an "egg-cosy" and had come from
the sale of work for Foreign Missions. A metal teapot and water-jug
stood in two green worsted nests.

Pamela poured herself out some tea. "I'm almost sure I told her I wanted
coffee in the morning," she murmured to herself, "but it doesn't
matter." Already she was beginning to hold Bella Bathgate in awe. She
took the top off the duck's egg and looked at it in an interested way.
"It's a beautiful colour--orange--but"--she pushed it away--"I don't
think I can eat it."

She drank some tea and ate a baker's roll, which was excellent; then she
rang the bell.

When Bella appeared she at once noticed the headless but uneaten egg,
and, taking it up, smelt it.

"What's wrang wi' the egg?" she demanded.

"Oh, nothing," said Pamela quickly. "