That was exactly what the kitchenmaid meant to do. Mrs. O’Halloran looked the girl over critically.
“I don’t know,” she said, “that I ever seen a girl that would look worse in a pink blouse than yourself. The face that’s on you is the colour of a dish of mashed turnips, and the pink blouse will make it worse, if worse can be.”
The kitchenmaid was a girl of some spirit. She felt inclined to cry, but she pulled herself together and snorted instead.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “that you’ll be looking out for a young man to keep you company?”
The kitchenmaid did, in fact, hope to walk about with a young man; but she denied this.
“I’ll be looking for no such thing,” she said.
“It’s well for you then,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “for I’m thinking you’d look a long while before you found one. It’s very little sense men has, the best of them, but I never met one yet that hadn’t more sense than to go after a girl like you. If you were any good for any mortal thing a man might be content to marry you in spite of your face; but the way you are, not fit to darn your own stockings, let alone sew for a man, or cook the way he could eat what you put before him, it would be a queer one that would walk the same side of the street with you, pink blouse or no pink blouse.”
The kitchenmaid, though a girl of spirit, was still young. She was washing potatoes in the scullery while Mrs. O’Halloran spoke to her. Two large tears dropped from her eyes into the sink. Mrs. O’Halloran smiled.
Then Molly, the parlourmaid, flung open the kitchen door and rushed to Mrs. O’Halloran. Her face was flushed with excitement and terror. Her eyes were staring. She was panting. Her nice frilly cap was over one ear. She held her apron crumpled into a ball and clutched tightly in her hand.
“It’s murdered we’ll be, killed and murdered and worse! There’s them in the house with guns and all sorts that’ll ruin and destroy everything that’s in it. The mistress is dead this minute and it’s me they’re after now. What’ll we do at all, at all?”