"And let you grow up wild, Irene, with no one to teach you--for you will not learn from me?"
"Well, mother, I shall never learn anything from Frosty. Oh, what a morning it is! Is that the footman I hear outside? I expect he has discovered."
Just then James, who had been in the family for the last five or six years, came staggering into the room. He had been caught by a booby-trap which Irene had placed just over his pantry door, and a shower of spiders and caterpillars and other offensive insects had fallen all over him. His face was deadly pale, and he declared that he had been severely stung.
"There were wasps there," he said, "and I have been stung in the cheek and on the hand; and, madam, I don't really know what to do."
"It was a booby-trap. You look beautiful, James!" said Irene.
James flashed her an angry glance. Poor Lady Jane started to the rescue. What was she to do with this intolerable child?
"There are a lot more traps laid for the other servants," said Irene under her breath. "I didn't want poor old James to be stung by the wasps. They stung me when I was catching them, but I didn't cry out. I never cry out when I have pain. I wonder which insect stings worst? I ought to have a few handy for the worst of the servants. The only one I don't want to part with is cook, for cook is so much afraid of me that she will give me any unwholesome food I like to ask her for. When dear Rose comes we will have a feast. Oh, won't we have fun! I wonder--I do wonder--when she will come?"
Lady Jane left the room, and returned with a blue-bag, which she applied to James's swollen hand and cheek. The frightened servant said he did not think he could keep his situation much longer; but Lady Jane begged of him to be patient. Irene had disappeared.
"It is the kind of shock, your ladyship," he said to his mistress. "It's that I can't bear. There was I a-walking in as innocent as you please into my pantry, carrying the hot dishes from your ladyship's breakfast. I just touched a string, and found a shower of the most venomous insects crawling all over me. I dropped the dish on the spot, and if it hadn't been a silver one it would have been in shivers. And how was she to know that it wouldn't be your ladyship's best Sèvres or Crown Derby? How am I to endure it, my lady?"