You bring the little ladder and stand at the bottom."
"There's one would be sorry if you were to fall," said the Hottentot maid,
leering at Bonaparte's pipe, that lay on the table.
"Hold your tongue, jade," said her mistress, trying to conceal a pleased
smile, "and go and fetch the ladder."
There was a never-used trap-door at one end of the sitting room: this the
Hottentot maid pushed open, and setting the ladder against it, the Boer-
woman with some danger and difficulty climbed into the loft. Then the
Hottentot maid took the ladder away, as her husband was mending the wagon-
house, and needed it; but the trap-door was left open.
For a little while Tant Sannie poked about among the empty bottles and
skins, and looked at the bag of peaches that Waldo was supposed to have
liked so; then she sat down near the trap-door beside a barrel of salt
mutton. She found that the pieces of meat were much too large, and took
out her clasp-knife to divide them.
That was always the way when one left things to servants, she grumbled to
herself: but when once she was married to her husband Bonaparte it would
not matter whether a sheep spoiled or no--when once his rich aunt with the
dropsy was dead. She smiled as she dived her hand into the pickle-water.
At that instant her niece entered the room below, closely followed by
Bonaparte, with his head on one side, smiling mawkishly.
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