Maggie was busy, but she greeted him with a quaint, friendly little smile. Helen noticed two things about her at once: that there was a queer bright light in her eyes, and that beneath them glowed two bright red spots, which, when Travis approached, deepened quickly.
“Yes, I am going to leave the mill,” she said, after Travis had left them together. “I jus' can't stan' it any longer. Mother is dead, you know, an' father is an invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters at home. I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em a-goin' until—well—I've saved enough an' with the help of—a—a—friend—you see—a very near friend—I've managed to get us a little farm. We're all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course, I'll be glad to teach you.”
She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: “Yo' hands don't look like they're used to work. They're so white and beautiful.”
Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and beautiful, and she knew her hands were the hands of many generations of ladies.
“I have to make a living for myself now,” she said with a dash of bitterness.
“If I looked like you,” said Maggie, slyly and yet frankly, “I'd do something in keeping with my place. I can't bear to think of anybody like you bein' here.”
Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were ready to start. She saw her half sob and she patted her cheek in a motherly way as she said:
“Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do hate so to see—oh, I am silly, I suppose, because I am going to get out of this terrible, terrible grind.”
Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent over her work to show Helen how to draw in the threads.
“Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct”—she nodded at the door from which Travis had gone out—“that I was the best in the worl'; the whole worl'.” She blushed slightly. “But, well—I've made no fortune yet—an' somehow, in yo' case now—you see—somehow I feel sorter 'fraid—about you—like somethin' awful was goin' to happen to you.”