"Yes'm."
"And, Lena," drawing a palm across the banister and showing it up, "look. That isn't nice. In my house I go over every piece of woodwork from top to bottom on my hands and knees. You mustn't wait for Miss Lilly to tell you everything. Where is she?"
"Upstairs, ma'am."
She ascended to a jeremiad of the cardinal laws of housekeeping, palm still suspicious. Her daughter rose out of a low mound beside the window.
"Good morning, mamma."
"Lilly, you should help upstairs wash days with the housework. Eight o'clock and my house is spick span, even my cellar steps wiped down. Take off that pink thing and I'll help you make the bed. It was all right to wear it around the first week for your husband, but now one of your cotton crepes will do. Come, help turn the mattress."
"Oh, mamma, Lena will make the bed."
"Who ever heard of not doing your upstairs work on wash day? Really, Lilly, I was ignorant as a bride, too, but I wasn't lazy. I wouldn't give a row of pins for—"
"Please, mamma—don't begin."
"Well, it's your house. If it suits your husband, it suits me."