“Don’t you do it!” exclaimed Mrs. Harris. “You beat ’em thorough.”
“I think we won’t do any more,” declared Barbara to Mrs. Harris, as the clock struck four. “We have been at this all the afternoon, and I’ll let you leave Jack’s room until to-morrow. We have done enough for to-day.”
Mrs. Harris put her hands on her hips and surveyed Barbara quizzically. “Well, you ain’t used to work, be you?” she said. “Tired, I s’pose.”
Barbara’s face flushed. She was so weary that she lost the dignity to which she had been clinging desperately all day.
“Yes, I am tired!” she burst out. “I worked all the morning before you came. Besides, it’s absurd to fly around like this, trying to do everything at once. My time is too valuable to waste so much of it upon such things as these.”
A queer expression settled upon the features of Mrs. Harris. She looked amused, indulgent, and vastly superior.
“Your time too valuable?” she said slowly and calmly; “your time too valuable? Well, young lady, I don’t know jest what things you’ve got to do besides taking care of your brothers and your sister, but I reckon there ain’t nothing better.”
Barbara drew a long breath of anger and walked away.
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” she said ruefully to her father, a few days later, “if only she didn’t assume all the powers and prerogatives of a sovereign. But she has actually reduced the children to the most subdued state you can imagine. Jack never ravages the pantry now, since Mrs. Harris caught him that first afternoon, and asked him kindly if he would mind leaving enough for the rest of us. Even Gassy never answers her saucily, and David goes about the house like a crushed piece of nothing. And yet she isn’t a bit cross or unkind. It’s something in her manner that admits of no disputation. Jack has named her the Duchess, and it just suits her.”