"And now," said Pam, "you're going to be turned out of house and home for the next few days. Unhappy man, you little know how you've carried soap and scrubbing brushes for your own destruction."
Mr. Graydon gave a gasp of genuine alarm.
"Soap and scrubbing brushes! But what for, Pam? I am sure everything is very clean—except my books; and I won't have the books touched, mind that—I won't have my books touched."
"Indeed, then, and I'd advise you to say that to Bridget yourself, for I'm sure I won't. She's taken a fit of industry, and says she might as well be living among haythens, wid th' ould dust an' dirt the masther's for ever gatherin'. 'Them ould books of his,' she says, 'would be a dale better for a rub of a damp cloth, and then a polish up wid a duster.'"
"Pam!" cried the unhappy gentleman. "She wouldn't dare put a damp cloth near my books."
"She'd dare most things, would Bridget. It's your vellum covers she's after chiefly. She says they're unnaturally dirty."
She looked at the beloved face, which bore a look of genuine dismay over its genial ruddiness.
"Never mind, dad," she said. "Bridget promises great things; but between you and me I believe the great clearing up will just end in what she herself calls a lick and a promise. I don't suppose she'll ever get so far as your possessions—I don't really believe she will."
"Don't let her, Pamela darling, will you?" said her father entreatingly. "Why, good gracious! my classics in vellum! A damp cloth! And Bridget's damp cloth! It would be enough to send me to an asylum."