*
"How did she do?" McKenna asked as soon as she was able to get Sarah alone.
"You would have loved watching her. Sassy simply had to touch everything, yet she spent only fifty cents and it was hard to get her to part with that. She is saving the rest."
"For what?"
"She would not say," Sarah answered.
"What did she buy?"
"The softest silk undergarments she could find and a blue ribbon for her hair. It is the same color as her eyes. I promised to help her tie the ribbon every morning."
"Then I shall make certain to comment on its beauty. Thank you." McKenna gave Sarah a quick hug, watched her leave, and then pulled a paper and pencil out of her pocket. She sat in a chair and started to make a list of what more they needed for the upstairs sitting room. The room faced the front yard with a grand view of the town through the trees, and she expected to spend a lot of her time there. A lamp would be nice and a table and chairs for playing cards.
McKenna leaned back, closed her eyes, and sighed. "Olivia will hate it no matter what we put in here."
*
Just before bed and in the privacy of their third-floor sitting room, the servants gathered to share the pies Halen made for them the day before.
"'Tis nearly morning in Scotland," Alistair mentioned, helping himself to a piece of pie. "My eyes see darkness outside, but my mind thinks 'tis time to get up."
"I am the same," said Jessie.
"Is the duchess truly as awful as you say, Sassy?" Halen asked.
There was a shortage of chairs, but sitting on the floor was nothing new to Sassy and she quickly made herself comfortable. Before she answered the question, however, she glanced at Alistair. When he didn't give her that warning look, she felt free to answer, "She be worse than the put-her."
"The put-her?" Prescot asked.
"'Tis what we called Old Mrs. Forthright. Each and every night we prayed God would put-her out, you see."
Sarah giggled, handed Sassy a piece of pie and then sat down beside her on the floor. "A put-her, the duchess is too, then?"
Sassy sighed. "I was forced to add the duchess to my prayers right after I got a good tongue whipping from her on the ship."
Said Jessie, "Mr. MacGreagor will not put the duchess out; he loves her. When they first married he was so smitten, he knew not half of what he was doin'."
"He was much younger then," Blanka reminded.
Keith nodded, "He has grown up a lot in the time I have known him."