"Certainly not, if you do not wish it. I was only putting you to rest on the score of my laundry work."
"With those hands!" said Mrs. Esthwaite expressively.
Eleanor looked down at her hands, for a moment a higher and graver expression flitted over her face, then she smiled again.
"I should be ashamed of my hands if they were good for nothing."
"Capital!" said Mr. Esthwaite. "That's what I like. That is what I call having spirit. I like to see a woman have some character of her own; something besides hands, in fact."
"But Eleanor, I do not understand. I am serious. You never washed; how can you know how?"
"That was precisely my reasoning; so I learned."
"Learned to wash? You?"
"Yes."
"You did it with your own hands?"