"If you'd just as lief, I'd prefer you wouldn't tell Sammy, I mean Mr. Slawson," she said, when she could enunciate. "He'd never get over my thinkin' I'm carriage-comp'ny. An' he'd kill himself laughin' at the sight o' me, climbin', hands an' knees, up your high stoop-with-no-steps, which the back view, lookin' at me from behind, certaintly musta been funny. But I've no business detainin' you away from your gran'ma. D'you think she'd think me pushin', if I give her a hot bath, an' a brisk alcohol rub? Sam may not get the doctor right off, an' a bath an' a alcohol rub is as good as anythin' I know of for a str—for a——"
Katherine Crewe searched her face. "For a what?" she demanded uncompromisingly.
"A poor circulation," Martha returned imperturbably.
"I've no alcohol. There's no running water in the house. I let the fire in the kitchen range go out hours ago."
"Never you mind about that. I got some alcohol by me, an' if you show me the kitchen range, I'll show you a fire in it, all right, all right."
"I don't know how it is," sighed Miss Crewe, leading the way through dark passages, past shadowy doors, "but, somehow, a great load seems lifted off my heart, now you're here. I've never seen you before, but I feel you're able to set everything right."
"You go on feelin' that way. It'll help me no end with the settin'. An', now, don't you wait here. You run on up to the ol' lady, an' I'll be along presently. I'm used to kitchens. I can find all I need in'm, an' when I got the hot water, I can find my way out."
"I'm afraid you'll think the floor isn't very clean," the girl observed regretfully, pausing, with her hand upon the doorknob, to gaze back dubiously. "I suppose it needs a long-handled scrubbing-brush, and——"
By the light of the lamp Miss Crewe left behind her when she went, Martha made a quick survey of the premises. "'A long-handled scrubbing-brush,'" she quoted quizzically. "A long-handled Irish woman, more likely. My, but it's a caution, if you turn up your nose at work, how the dirt will gather under it. It's like to take me all night to make a impression on this place. The grate chock-full o' clinkers, an' the kettles—say, but I didn't say I'd give the ol' lady a hot mud-bath."
For a few moments the kitchen resounded with thunderous echoes to the vigorous efforts of Mrs. Slawson toward reconstruction. Then followed other sounds, those of crackling wood, igniting coals, bubbling water, escaping steam. In the midst of it all, Sykey appeared in the doorway.