The girls washed thoroughly and methodically. Mary felt certain that when the plates and cups left their hands, they were clean.
"That's what I call good conscientious work," she told Mrs. Black.
That lady brightened. "I do my best, Mrs. Heyham," she replied. "You'll not find a smear of mustard on a plate upstairs once in six months. And so it should be, with the beautiful water we get. And the linen the same, as much water as you like, and open-air drying. Customers say that what they get at home don't touch it."
At that moment Miss Percival, who had been watching one of the girls cleaning saucepans, intervened. "Do you have much fainting?" she asked.
"Never had such a thing!" Mrs. Black stared straight in front of her as if Miss Percival were disembodied. "At least," she added, with the air of one who was anxious to be absurdly truthful, "there was a young girl here who fainted once. I put it down to them silly corsets myself." She turned to Mary, as if to invite her sympathy.
The girl with the saucepans straightened herself and tried to appear thoroughly well. Mary, noticing her, looked round for a chair, but discovered that there was none.
"Oughtn't she to sit down for a minute?" she suggested. She felt sorry for the girl, who looked delicate.
"There again!" Mrs. Black's voice suggested that she was put out—"there's two chairs provided for this room, and if you'll believe me they puts them into the passage! Says they get in the way!"
Here one of the girls turned round. "'Tisn't us that puts them into the passage, Mrs. Black! It's the kitchen as takes them, as you know!"
"And what's the kitchen doing in here?" retorted Mrs. Black. "Anyway, you go along and get one for the lady!"