"O certainly! and the plates and cups too. In fact, I wash up all the things once a day."
"Pray tell me, cousin, precisely what you understand by 'dishes,' if I'm not intruding," said Robert.
"O not at all! come in and sit down. You'll find it pleasanter there by the window. 'Dishes?' Why, that is a dish, and that and that," pointing to them.
"I see. The word 'dishes' is not a generic term in Virginia, but applies only to platters and vegetable dishes. What do you call them in the aggregate, Cousin Sudie? I mean plates, platters, cups, saucers, and everything."
"Why 'things,' I suppose. We speak of 'breakfast things,' 'tea things,' 'dinner things.' But why were you astonished to see me washing them, Cousin Robert?"
"Perhaps I ought to have known better, but the fact is I had an impression that Southern ladies were wholly exempt from all work except, perhaps, a little embroidery or some such thing."
"O my! I wish you could see me during circuit court week, when Uncle Carter and Cousin Billy bring the judge and the lawyers home with them at all sorts of odd hours; and they always bring the hungriest ones there are too. I fall at once into a chronic state of washing up things, and don't recover until court is over."
