She stroked the narrow strips of pink and green with a fond hand, and cast on Jane a look which pleaded indulgence. "Isn't it just too quaintly ugly for anything?"
"It isn't any such thing," cried Jane. "It's just as sweet as it can be!
I only wish mine was like it."
Mrs. Bates glanced from the wall-paper to the window-box, and from the window down into the back yard, where, beneath the week's washing, flapping in the breeze and the sun, she saw next summer's flowers already blooming.
"Did you read that paragraph last week," she asked, suddenly, "about my having been a washer-woman once?"
"No. What was it in?"
"One of those miserable society papers. Do you know there's a man in this town who makes his living by sending such things to New York? Something scandalous, if possible; if not scandalous, then libellous; if not actually libellous, then derogatory and offensive."
"I never read such stuff," said Jane; "especially about people I like. I always skip it,"
"Yes, but it's true. I can't deny it. I was a washerwoman for a whole year. I washed all Granger's shirts and starched them and ironed them, and put them away and got them out and washed them again for months and months. Every one went through the mill pretty often, too; there weren't very many of them.
"Those are Granger's shirts out on the line there, now—the big ones.
Those in the other row are Jimmy's—the little ones."
"H'm!" observed Jane, standing beside her at the window; "which are the little ones?"