Not that she grudged offering her help, but she knew so little of her mother-in-law's life. Should she have to go and wash and iron among a lot of other women?
Mrs. Seymour paused a moment before answering, and then said cheerfully—
"Well, my dear, if you would help me for an hour or so, till Jem comes home to dinner, I should be very much obliged, and then we can ask him. What worries me is, that I promised a man who is going away to get his shirts done by one o'clock; but I was that beat, that I could not stand another moment."
"I wish you had asked me," said Meg, looking grieved. "You must try to think of me as a real daughter."
Mrs. Seymour was much touched, but it was not her way to show feeling, and she only answered—
"Thank you, my dear. I shall take your kindness as it was meant; but if you help me at any little pinch like this, you must not be hurt at my giving you what I should have given Jenny."
Meg looked mystified, and then coloured painfully.
"Oh, I don't think I could," she began; but her mother-in-law stopped her.
"Talk it over with Jem, my dear; this is a hard world, and if you could put by a little for a rainy day you would not be sorry. I must pay some one; why not you?"
"We will talk to Jem," said Meg, recovering herself, and speaking with cheerful alacrity. "I am quite ready, mother; so if you are, we will come and begin, because one o'clock will be soon here."