`I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be a field before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all.'

(All.) `Yes'm!'

`And so good-night.'

(All.) `Good-night, ma'am.'

Then this small thesmothete stepped from the table, and surged out of the hall, her black silk dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratching noise upon the floor. Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion from a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba with a milder dignity not entirely free from travesty, and the door was closed.