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Updated: June 4, 2025
Flaxman looked on helplessly as she sat nervously creasing her napkin; then with a sudden look of relief she said: "Shall I despatch Esmerelda to the Mill Road? They will have little enough time to get all that heap of good things carried away before night." Mr. Winthrop signified his willingness, and as she was leaving the room Mrs. Flaxman, by a look, summoned me to follow her.
No doubt you think this a very simple, easy thing to do, but first listen a moment: I felt the "Star" gradually sinking under me near the Malouine Islands, the sixty-eighth degree of latitude kept me a prisoner in its sea of ice at the South Pole; I passed two consecutive days and nights on board the Esmerelda, between fire and inundation; and if I were to extract the quintessence of the agonies experienced upon these three occasions it could never equal the intense torture I suffer at the Poste-Restante.
This so startled her that she knocked the lid to the cookie jar to the floor with a crash, and she saw Jeremiah disappear around the corner. The sudden noise woke Aunt Esmerelda, and the old cook opened her eyes wide when she saw Hortense with cookies bulging from every pocket. "So tha's where all my cookies done go!" exclaimed the cook. "That yere girl is done takin' 'em by the dozen.
"I'm not afraid of the cat," Hortense declared. "And then there's the other one," said Highboy. "He's worse still. He's round, and bright, and hard, with sharp points all over a terrible fellow." "Is he the 'ha'nt, as Aunt Esmerelda calls it?" Hortense asked. Highboy knew nothing about that.
"Every one that can dress becomingly claims that title with us; I presume Esmerelda with the rest." "But her mother?" I left the sentence unfinished. "Lives on Mill Road and takes in washing." "Don't you think it is wiser to keep servants in their proper place as they do in Europe? One is not in danger there of mistaking maid for mistress."
Nor when she spoke to Highboy did he answer; he was not there. Only a dead thing of wood stood where Highboy had been. "Dear me," thought Hortense, "I suppose it is the same with Lowboy. How then, will Grandmother get at her knitting?" She hastily dressed in the clothes she had worn the day before. Breakfast was over, and Hortense begged Aunt Esmerelda for a bite in the kitchen.
Just to be safe, Hortense planned to take Malay Kris along, since he had proved himself such a good fighter in other close scrapes. Now if only there would be the fifty-two cookies needed, thirteen apiece for Fergus, Malay Kris, Andy and herself. When Hortense went back to the kitchen Aunt Esmerelda was dozing in the corner, her apron thrown up over her head.
No higher compliment than this could Esmerelda have paid me; neither could I help acknowledging that she looked very graceful and lady-like in her Sunday garment, and often I fell to speculating how she would have appeared if half her life had been spent at a first-class boarding-school.
"Yo' sho' scaihs me. Run along and git ready fo' dinnah." Though Hortense lingered, Aunt Esmerelda would not say another word, and finally Hortense went to change her dress. "They could hear the soft pat-pat of padded feet in the hall." Dinner was served in the large dining room. Friendly clusters of candles stood on the round mahogany table and made little pools of light on its bright surface.
What's yours?" Hortense told him. They looked at each other without further words. "You've got to get through the kitchen without Aunt Esmerelda seeing you," said Hortense, and led the way to the cellar stairs. "You stay here until I see if she's still asleep," Hortense said as she crept cautiously to the top. She opened the door very gently and peered in.
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