Only, there was one point on which she would be glad of a clear understanding before she went: was she expected to wait on that young person?
I told her, no; and she need not wait on me either. I shouldn’t take either of them down with me. I left it at that—to her surprise.
Then I sought out Eileen and her grandmother, asked if she felt she could make the fires and wash up, if Mrs. Widow and I did all the rest; as, if so, I should pay her at the same rate that I paid Abigail. You should have seen the look of relief that came over her face when she heard Abigail was not going.
“Oh, I could do everything,” she said. “I’d so much rather do it and be by myself. I’m very strong; and I’m afraid I might upset Miss Abigail.”
“Miss Abigail!” snorted the old grandmother. “Has to earn her living same as the rest of us, I suppose! But I’m much more easy in my mind, ma’am, that Ann is going without her. She’ll look after you well, she will; you’ll want nothing, her’ll see to that” (slipping back into her old-time Devonshire), “but she’s not bin used to stuck-up society.”
Thus it came about that instead of the fashionably-attired and efficient Abigail, I eventually went down to my cottage accompanied by a girl who looked precisely like an estimable orphan, just stepped out of some Early Victorian Sunday-school library book; and you felt sure she would come to an equally virtuous end.
Nevertheless, I didn’t go the following week, as I had planned.