O'Brien's face grew red, she opened her lips to retort just as I arrived to where they stood. I stepped between them.
"O'Brien, will you get a bucket of coal? I want more steam as soon as I can have it."
"Yes, ma'am," and she started away; but she looked up at me as she went as much to say, you have saved me.
I turned to Mrs. Hardhack.
"I'm sorry one of your girls couldn't eat her breakfast; you know it is impossible for me to get anything aside from the Master's orders, and what the rest have. I'll see if I can find her something."
"We have got so much contract work to get done to-night, and, if the women faint away, they can't do it."
"I should be glad to provide them a good, substantial breakfast to work on; but I can't have my way about it. It is very cruel to feed them as they are fed here; and then, to work them as they are worked."
I thought, as I went to look up something for her to take to the poor girl, of the remark John Randolph made to his lady neighbor, when he entered her house and found her at work for the Greeks, "The Greeks are at your door." He had entered the house through a little army of naked, ignorant servants.
Do not the ladies of the United States need to be reminded that the Greeks are at their door? Are they not in every prison in the land?
I went into the pantry. There was a skillet pan standing on the shelf with a bone in it. I took it out and inquired,—