“What has she to do with washing? Oh, you sweet innocent—pardon my familiarity, but such ignorance of country-life customs is very touching in one who is writing a book about them.”
“Oh, I have no doubt I am very ignorant,” said Minora loftily.
“Seasons of washing,” explained Irais, “are seasons set apart by the Hausfrau to be kept holy. They only occur every two or three months, and while they are going on the whole house is in an uproar, every other consideration sacrificed, husband and children sunk into insignificance, and no one approaching, or interfering with the mistress of the house during these days of purification, but at their peril.”
“You don’t really mean,” said Minora, “that you only wash your clothes four times a year?”
“Yes, I do mean it,” replied Irais.
“Well, I think that is very disgusting,” said Minora emphatically.
Irais raised those pretty, delicate eyebrows of hers. “Then you must take care and not marry a German,” she said.
“But what is the object of it?” went on Minora.
“Why, to clean the linen, I suppose.”
“Yes, yes, but why only at such long intervals?”