"I couldn't on so short a notice. Mrs. Van Dorn had not been well. I read her to sleep nearly every night. And there are so many little things to do."
"Well, if she'd employ herself about something useful she wouldn't need to be read to sleep, nor want so much waiting on."
"That is what I am hired to do," Helen returned with a good-natured intonation that she kept from being flippant.
"Well, if I had ever so much money I couldn't find it in my conscience to dawdle away time and have someone wait upon me. And how's Mrs. Dayton? All the boarders staying?"
"Yes, the house is full."
"Mrs. Dayton does have the luck of things! But she hasn't a chick nor a child, nor a husband and a lot of boys to mend for. I was foolish to let you go over there, Helen, when I needed you so much myself. It isn't even as if you were learning anything, just fiddling round waiting on a woman who hasn't an earthly thing to do. And I'm so put about, I don't know what to take up first. 'Reely, you hurry with the potatoes or you'll get a good slap."
There was a diversion with Fan and Tommy who shook sand over the kitchen floor. Fan's face was stained with berries but she flung her arms about Helen and kissed her rapturously, while Tom dug his elbows into her lap.
"Did you come in a horse and carriage?" asked Fan, wide-eyed.
"I came in the carriage."
"You know well enough what she meant, Helen. You'll get so fine there'll be hardly any living with you when you come back."