“Hot pipes! How queer!—I shud feel as if I wur in a boiler.”
“And there was hot and cold water laid on.”
“Reckon you washed.”
“I had a bath.”
“In your room?”
“No—in a bathroom.”
“A real white bath in a bathroom!...” Mrs. Beatup was regaining confidence in her daughter. “You’ll be gitting too grand fur us here. They say as once you start taaking baths it’s like taaking drams, and you can’t git shut of it. I’ll have to see if I can’t fix fur you to have the wash-tub now and agaun.... Oh, you’ll find us plain folks here.”
Nell did not speak; she was stooping over the fire and her spread hands shook a little.
“Reckon she’s low,” said Mrs. Beatup in a hoarse whisper to Tom; “she’s said good-bye to her man, and she’s vrothering lest he never comes back. It’s always ’good-bye’ fur her lik fur the rest of us.”
“It’ll have to be ‘good-bye’ fur me now, mother. I must be gitting hoame.”