“Whenever you wish to retire, dear, your room is ready.”
“Oh! sure, I thank ye, ma’am. Any time as shutes yourself will shute me,” replied Judy with a wide gape, waking up.
“Come, then,” said Palma, and she led the sleepy and half-bewildered girl into the pretty little bedchamber, where she had laid out a dainty night dress for her guest. Judy waked up fully in the process of disrobing, and then her hostess said:
“To-morrow you shall have a better accommodation, but to-night you will share my room. I hope you won’t mind it.”
“Och, no, ma’am. Sure and haven’t I been used to pigging in itself?” began Judy brightly, but she suddenly checked herself and amended her phraseology—“I mean, ma’am, I have been accustomed to close quarters in the mining camp, and this is a palace compared to any place I have ever seen before.”
“It is a pretty little doll’s house as one could wish, for dolls,” replied Palma with a laugh. “Not quite spacious enough, however, for one who loves space.”
“Which side am I to sleep on, ma’am?” inquired the girl when she was ready for bed.
“Any side you wish, dear. But, Judy, please don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ If you do I shall be obliged to call you ‘miss,’ and I should not like that, and I do not think you would like it, either.”
“Fegs and I wouldn’t! Oh! that is to say, no, ma’am, I should not. I should feel it to be cold and unkind of you.”
“Very well, then, Judy dear, do as you would be done by.”