dairy as soon as the dairymaid had brought in the afternoon's milking.
There it was, still frothing and bubbling in three great bowls, and
taking up the first of them in my little thin arms--goodness knows
how--I made straight for my mother's room.

But hardly had I climbed half-way up the stairs, puffing and panting
under my burden, when I met Nessy MacLeod coming down, and she fell on
me with her usual reproaches.

"Mary O'Neill, you wilful, underhand little vixen, whatever are you
doing with the milk?"

Being in no mood for explanations I tried to push past, but Nessy
prevented me.

"No, indeed, you shan't go a step further. What will your Aunt Bridget
say? Take the milk back, miss, this very minute."

Nessy's loud protest brought Betsy Beauty out of the dining-room, and in
a moment my cousin, looking more than ever like a painted doll in her
white muslin dress with a large blue bow in her yellow hair, had run
upstairs to assist her step-sister.

I was now between the two, the one above and the other below, and they
laid hold of my bowl to take it from me. They tugged and I resisted and
there was a struggle in which the milk was in danger of being spilled.

"She's a stubborn little thing and she ought to be whipped," cried
Nessy.