"No," said Mary, laughing, "it isn't, Miss Faith—but it's all right, Miss Irene helped me. Oh, she is a clever young lady, Miss Faith, and so nice, she—she will wash dishes, and make cake, and sweep the kitchen, or—or anything, and be a lady all the time!"
"Cook! Can Miss Irene cook?"
"I should think she can, miss. It's a long time since we had a dinner so nice, or—or my kitchen either," added Mary honestly, as she hurried out to it again. "You come and look, Miss Faith. She's washed away all the dishes and has made the place look like a little palace."
"Washed the dishes!" Audrey groaned in bitterness of spirit, as she and Faith followed Mary out. In spite of dinner having just been cooked there, Audrey saw at a glance that this was the kitchen of her dreams—the neat, clean kitchen she had longed for, but had never attempted to create.
Mary looked at them both, her face glowing. Irene's interest and encouragement had quite inspired her; and her practical help had shown her the way. Every one of her few chance words, too, had gone home.
"'I can't bear to see a kitchen littered with dirty dishes, can you, Mary?' she said to me. I hadn't thought about it before, but when it was put to me like that I felt all of a sudden that I couldn't bear to see it either. 'And the longer they are left the nastier they are, aren't they?' she said, and that's true too, Miss Faith. 'The kettle is boiling, and we can have some nice hot soapy water. We will see how soon we can get everything cleared away,' she says, and up she turns her sleeves, and— well, she washed all those things as well as I could myself, and better. Look at the shine on them, Miss Faith."
"I am looking," said Faith; but it was something else that she saw the shining of. The shining of a brave spirit, and a warm heart—of an example that she never forgot.
"Miss Irene wouldn't let me do more than put the things back in their places, 'cause of my hand."
Without another word Audrey turned and walked away. The shame in her heart burned in her cheeks, and in her eyes. "And I—I talk, and do nothing. I tell other people what they ought to do—Irene helps them do it." And through her mind passed the thought; "What kind of dinner would they all have had, if they had to rely on her? What would the kitchen have been like at that moment, if it had been left to her?"
Debby came rushing out of the dining-room tempestuously. "Have you made yourself ready for dinner?" asked Audrey, laying a detaining hand on her.