“Oh, I’ll provide you with means for removing the coal-dust from face and hands,” interrupted Hetty briskly, leading the way into the dining-room and across it to a closet, where she turned the water into a stationary washstand, and taking a clean towel and piece of soap from a drawer, laid them down beside it.
“There, just take off your things and give them to me.”
“Thank you, but—my hair?” said Floy, “I never sat down to breakfast in my life without first using a comb and brush.”
“Oh, just smooth it a little on top, and it’ll do well enough for this once; we’re all women and girls together; not a man in the house except Mr. Sharp, and he never comes to our early breakfast.”
The shadow of a smile flitted over the face of the new-comer.
“No,” laughed Hetty, divining her thought, “I would not be a slattern if all the men were at the bottom of the sea. Don’t judge of me by Patsy, I beg of you,” she added, with an odd grimace; “dirt and she have so strong an affinity for each other that there’s no keeping them apart.” And taking Floy’s hat and shawl, she hurried away. She was back again by the time our heroine had finished her hasty toilet.
Floy’s story had not preceded her. She had not felt willing that it should, and even Mrs. Sharp knew little more than that she was a young girl of good family who wished to learn dress-making and millinery.
But the deep mourning told of recent bereavement, and something in the patient sadness of the face went to Hetty’s warm heart. With a sudden impulse she threw her arms about Floy and kissed her.
“You poor thing, so far away from home and all you love!” she said, “it must seem terribly hard.”
Floy’s lip trembled and her eyes filled. She could only return the embrace in silence; her heart was too full for speech.