One day, when she had been ill for more than a week, I told her that she might stay on with me and be cared for, and have a certain very moderate wage, and do only such little light work as she felt able to, all the heavier being taken over by a stronger woman.
She pricked her head up and spoke from a white pillow, equal to fate once more:—
"Now, God save us! If it isn't always good that be growin' out of evil! I'll be yer housekeeper! And who'll ye have for a cook? 'Tis I'll be keepin' the keys of things! Bring along the cook! Black or white, I don't care. I kin manage her!" (This threateningly.)
This was alarming, but I counted upon inspiration and ingenuity when the time came.
I found a West India darky, whose condition also needed improving. She was a fine type. She might have walked out of the jungles of Africa; magnificently powerful, a little old. She was as irrevocably Protestant as Margaret was Catholic. I urged each of them privately to remember that they were both the Lord's children and therefore sisters. Augusta accepted this in solemn religious spirit,—such a speech on my part bound her to me forever,—but Margaret took it with a chip on her shoulder.
"She can call herself a Christian if she likes, but it is an insult to the Lord, for she's nothin' better nor a heathen! Black like that!"
"But, Margaret, you said you would not object to a black woman."
"No, ma'am, nor I don't!" said Margaret, veering swiftly after her own manner; "it's her pink lips I can't shtand."
This was the beginning of their warfare; which, not inconsistently, was made infinitely more bitter by Augusta's fixed resolve to be a Christian.
Augusta had a predilection for hymns, one in particular, whose refrain could be heard wailing and poignant and confident at odd moments:—