As she looked into Lydia’s pale face and reddened eyes, the smile died away. She clasped her big hands with a pitying gesture, and cried out a Gaelic exclamation of compassion with a much-moved accent; then, “It’s time I was here,” she told herself. She wiped her eyes, passed the back of her hand over her nose with a sniff, picked up the dishcloth from the floor, and advanced upon a pile of dirty silver. Her massive bulk shook the floor.
“I don’t know no more about housework than Casey’s pig,” she told them cheerfully, “but Aunt Bridgie says in America they don’t none of the gurrls know nothing. They just hold their jobs because their ladies know they couldn’t do no better to change, and maybe I can learn. I want to help.”
She emptied the silver into the dishwater with a splash, and set to work, turning her broad face to them to say familiarly over her shoulder to Lydia, “Now, just you go and lie down and send the little ould gentleman about his business. You need to be quiet—for the sake of the one that’s coming; and don’t you forget I’m here. I’m—here!”
Dr. Melton drew Lydia away silently, and not until they had put two rooms between them and the kitchen did they dare face each other. With that first interchange of looks came peals of laughter—Lydia’s light, ringing laughter—to hear which the doctor offered up heartfelt thanksgivings.
“That is your fate, Lydia,” he said finally, wiping his eyes.
“Don’t you just love her?” Lydia cried. “Isn’t she the most human thing!”
“Do you remember Maeterlinck’s theory that every soul summons—”
Lydia interrupted to say with a wry, humorous mouth, “You know I don’t know anything. Don’t ask me if I remember things.”
“Well, Maeterlinck has one of his fanciful theories that everybody calls to him from the unknown those elements that he most needs, which are most in harmony with—”
“I caught a good solid element that time,” cried Lydia, laughing again.