"All li', savvy plenty," said Sam. "My cookee good dinner for Missus. Five dolla mo' velly good. My cookee velly good: makee litty gal stop allo same wifo."
And he went back to the kitchen, solemn and satisfied, but very curious to see the litty piecee gal when she was washed.
It was all an amazing dream for poor Jenny. If it had not been for the black bruise on her knee she would have thought herself in some new world. For the house was beautifully built and lined inside with red cedar. The furniture was as good as any in the City, for the tragedy of Quin's life was, that he had met a white woman, and had fallen in love with her three years ago. They were to have been married, but the woman found out about his past history, his character as a squaw-man, and threw him over. He had prepared the house for her. The dead Haida girl Lily had come instead. Jenny dreamed and wondered and half forgot that she was not good to be there. Quin was very strong, "hyu skookum," and his house was to be hers, and he would prevent Pete killing her. As she got into the hot water the tears ran down her face. But the bath was pleasant, and she was not too degraded to enjoy the cleanliness of things; and the hot water eased the tension of her mind, and it seemed suddenly as if her life with Pete was something very far off, hardly to be remembered.
And then she handled the clothes she was to wear, and the mere woman woke in her heart. Here was linen far better than that she had helped to wash for Mrs. Alexander before Pete had come and taken her from Kamloops! It was beautiful linen to her eye, and in spite of everything the pleasure she found in it was wonderful, for though she did not know it, her skin was tender and delicate and had always suffered from the stuff she had worn.
There were silk stockings!
"Mista Quin he very gleat man," said Jenny, awestruck. "Much better than any I ever see, never nanitsh any like 'em."
When she got them on she took up the dress. It was also silk, but not like the monstrous tartan the cause of all her woe. It was a dark red and fine and supple, for Lily had seen it in her last days at Victoria and Quin had bought it for her, knowing that she would never wear it. She died with it on her bed: her dead hand touched it. It made another klootchman nearly happy.
"I aflaid to wear it," said Jenny as she held it up, "it too beautiful for poor me. I don't know where I am: I feel silly, all like a dleam."
She looked at the big glass and saw herself white clad, and with the red silk in her hands. Her shoulders were white: her sun-tanned neck showed how white they were. And the red was lovely.
She put it on and she almost screamed with pleasure.