Then Aunt Jessica said something that really did surprise her young guest. She had been watching the girl closely, quite without Elliott’s knowledge.
“Perhaps you would like this for your own special part of the work,” she said pleasantly. “We each have our little chores, you know. I couldn’t let every girl attempt the milk things, but you are so careful and thorough that I haven’t the least hesitation about giving them to you. Now I am going to wash the separator. Watch me, and then you will know just what to do.”
The words left Elliott gasping. Wash the separator, all by herself, every day—or was it twice a day?—for as long as she stayed here! And pans—all these pans? What was a separator, anyway? She wished flatly to refuse, but the words stuck in her throat. There was something about Aunt Jessica that you couldn’t say no to. Aunt Jessica so palpably expected you to 49 be delighted. She was discriminating, too. She had recognized at once that Elliott was not an ordinary girl. But—but—
It was all so disconcerting that self-possessed Elliott stammered. She stammered from pure surprise and chagrin and a confusing mixture of emotions, but what she stammered was in answer to Aunt Jessica’s tone and extracted from her by the force of Aunt Jessica’s personality. The words came out in spite of herself.
“Oh—oh, thank you,” she said, a bit blankly. Then she blushed with confusion. How awkward she had been. Oughtn’t Aunt Jessica to have thanked her?
If Aunt Jessica noticed either the confusion or the blankness, she gave no sign.
“That will be fine!” she said heartily. “I saw by the way you handled those pans that I could depend on you.”
Insensibly Elliott’s chin lifted. She regarded 50 the pans with new interest. “Of course,” she assented, “one has to be particular.”
“Very particular,” said Aunt Jessica, and her dark eyes smiled on the girl.