"Yer clothes will be ruined, Peg, and you've no more money to buy new ones. I almost thinks I shan't like the country."
But a minute after, the glory of perching her cap on the top of her head, and feeling that it had a right to remain there, overcame all her woes.
She went downstairs with a smiling face, and when she found herself in a cheerful kitchen, which, though small, was tidy, she again congratulated herself on her good fortune.
Joyce found her really helpful in getting things to rights, and when she laid her head on her pillow that night, Peggy added the following to her evening prayer:
"And, please God, I thank you for bringin me 'ere, and making me into a proper servant. And I'll try to do my dooty to you and my missuses. And please help me to do it, for Jesus' sake. Amen."
Perhaps the supreme moment to Peggy was that in which she stood arrayed the next morning in her clean print gown. What did it matter if it was faded and old? It was starched, and crackled when she moved.
"Sounds like silk almost," she said to herself; and she certainly swept downstairs as if she were a princess robed in satin.
Poor little Peggy had never before possessed a dress that had to be washed. When water was scarce, and soap and soda had to be considered, it was natural that she could not afford the luxury of a dress that soiled so easily. A girl going to her first ball could not have taken more care not to spoil the dainty freshness of her gown, than Peggy did of her second-hand print dress that morning.
Joyce, coming down to help with the breakfast, returned to her sister upstairs exploding with laughter.
"Helen, your little maid will be the death of me!"