"Did he send you?"
I felt myself growing flushed, though there was no reason for it.
"Deacon Richards asked me to come," I answered.
"I don't know him," she commented, evidently confused. "Is he Overseer?"
I hushed her, and went on with my work, for I wanted to think what I had better tell her. Of course Marm Bagley was of no use, but when Hannah came things went better. Hannah was scandalized at my being there at all, and of course would not hear of my doing the rough work. She took possession of Mrs. Bagley, and ordered her about with a vigor which completely dazed that unsatisfactory person, and amused me so much that my disturbed spirits rose once more. This was all very well as long as it lasted, but Hannah had to go home for dinner, and when the restraint of her presence was removed Marm Bagley reasserted herself. She tied a frowzy bonnet over a still more frowzy head, lighted her pipe, and departed for the woods behind the house.
"When that impudent old hired girl o' yours's got all through and got out," she remarked, "you can hang a towel out the shed winder, and I'll come back. I ain't got no occasion to stay here and git ordered round by no hired girl of anybody's."
My remonstrances were of no avail, since I would not promise not to let Hannah come into the house, and the fat old woman waddled away into the seclusion of the woods. I suppose she slept somewhere, though the woods must be so damp that the indulgence seems rather a dangerous one; but at nightfall she returned more odorous, and more like Sairey Gamp than ever.
Hannah came back, and we did what we could. When Dr. Wentworth came in the afternoon he allowed us to get Julia into clean linen, and she did seem grateful for the comfort of fresh sheets and pillow-slips. It amused me that Hannah had not only taken the servants' bedding, but had picked out the oldest.
"I took the wornest ones," she explained. "Of course we wouldn't any of us ever want to sleep in them again."
She was really shocked at my proposing to remain for the night.