“Thank you, Katy,” said Mr. Snow. “I hope nothing of that kind will occur. A great wrong has been perpetrated, but we must find some way to right it without involving such extremely nice young women in the annoyance of legal proceedings.”
Katy folded her arms and raised her head. All her share of the blarney of Ireland began to roll from the mellow tip of her tongue.
“Now, the nice man ye are, to be seein’ the beauty of them girls so quick,” she said. “The good Lord airly in the mornin’ of creation thought them out when He was jist fresh from rist, and the material was none shopworn. They ain’t ladies like ’em anywhere else in the whole of California, and belave me, a many rale ladies have I seen in my time. Ye can jist make up your mind that Miss Linda is the broth of the earth. She is her father’s own child and she is like him as two pase in the pod. And Marian growed beside her, and much of a hand I’ve had in her raisin’ meself, and well I’m knowin’ how fine she is and what a juel she’d be, set on any man’s hearthstone. I’m wonderin’,” said Katy challengingly, “if you’re the Mr. Snow at whose place she is takin’ her lessons, and if ye are, I’m wonderin’ if ye ain’t goin’ to use the good judgment to set her, like the juel she would be, in the stone of your own hearth.”
Eugene Snow looked at Katy intently. He was not accustomed to discussing his affairs with household helpers, but he could not look at Katy without there remaining in his vision the form of Linda standing beside her, a reassuring arm stretched across her shoulders, the manner in which she had presented her and then left her that she might be free to answer as she chose with out her young mistress even knowing exactly what was asked of her. Such faith and trust and love were unusual.
“I might try to do that very thing,” he said, “but, you know, a wonderful woman is an animated jewel. You can’t manufacture a setting and put her in and tighten the clasps without her consent.”
“Then why don’t you get it?” said Katy casually.
Eugene Snow laughed ruefully.
“But suppose,” he said, “that the particular jewel you’re discussing prefers to select her own setting, and mine does not please her.”
“Well, they’s jist one thing,” said Katy. Her heels left the floor involuntarily; she arose on her tiptoes; her shoulders came up, and her head lifted to a height it never had known before. “They’s jist one thing,” she said. “Aside from Miss Linda, who is my very own child that I have washed and I have combed and I have done for since she was a toddlin’ four-year-old, they ain’t no woman in this world I would go as far for as I would for Miss Marian; but I’m tellin’ ye now, ye Mr. Eujane Snow, that they’s one thing I don’t lend no countenance to. I am sorry she has had the cold, cruel luck that she has, but I ain’t sorry enough that I’m goin’ to stand for her droppin’ herself into the place where she doesn’t belong. If the good Lord ain’t give her the sense to see that you’re jist the image of the man that would be jist exactly right for her, somebody had better be tellin’ her so. Anyway, if Miss Linda is takin’ ye up to the house that Mr. Pater Morrison is buildin’ and the Pater man is there, I would advise ye to cast your most discernin’ eye on that gintleman. Ye watch him jist one minute when he looks at the young missus and he thinks nobody ain’t observing him, and ye’ll see what ye’ll see. If ye want Marian, ye jist go on and take her. I’m not carin’ whether ye use a club or white vi’lets, but don’t ye be lettin’ Marian Thorne get no idea into her head that she is goin’ to take Mr. Pater Morrison, because concernin’ Pater I know what I know, and I ain’t goin’ to stand by and see things goin’ wrong for want of spakin’ up. Now if you’re a wise man, ye don’t nade nothing further said on the subject.”
Eugene Snow thought intently for a few moments. His vision centered on Katherine O’Donovan’s face.