"I'm afraid we must wait a little longer,
Patty," she advised. "Don't mention my name to father, but see
how he acts in the morning. He was so wild, so unlike himself,
that I almost hope he may forget what he said and sleep it off.
Yes, we must just wait."
"No doubt he'll be far calmer in the morning if he remembers
that, if he turns you out, he faces the prospect of three meals a
day cooked by me," said Patty. "That's what he thinks he would
face, but as a matter of fact I shall tell him that where you
sleep I sleep, and where you eat I eat, and when you stop cooking
I stop! He won't part with two unpaid servants in a hurry, not at
the beginning of haying." And Patty, giving Waitstill a last hug
and a dozen tearful kisses, stole reluctantly back to the house
by the same route through which he had left it.
Patty was right. She found the fire lighted when she went down
into the kitchen next morning, and without a word she hurried
breakfast on to the table as fast as she could cook and serve it.
Waitstill was safe in the barn chamber, she knew, and would be
there quietly while her father was feeding the horse and milking
the cows; or perhaps she might go up in the woods and wait until
she saw him driving away.
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