This she placed before the small servant, and then, taking
up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it.
"Do you see this?" she said, slicing off about two square inches of cold
mutton, and holding it out on the point of a fork.
The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see
every shred of it and answered, "Yes."
"Then don't you ever go and say," retorted Miss Sally, "that you hadn't
meat here. There, eat it up."
This was soon done.
"Now, do you want any more?" said Miss Sally.
The hungry creature answered with a faint "No." They were evidently
going through an established form.
"You've been helped once to meat," said Miss Brass, summing up the
facts; "you have had as much as you can eat: you're asked if you want
any more, and you answer 'No.' Then don't you ever go and say you were
allowanced,--mind that!"
With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away, locked the meat-safe,
and then overlooked the small servant while she finished the potatoes.
After that, without the smallest cause, she rapped the child with the
blade of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her
back. Then, after walking slowly backward towards the door, she darted
suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant again, gave her some
hard blows with her clenched fists. The victim cried, but in a subdued
manner, as if she feared to raise her voice; and Miss Sally ascended the
stairs just as Richard had safely reached the office, fairly beside
himself with anger over the poor child's misery and ill-treatment.
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