“Now then!” she said briskly, and in a tone of dreadful warning. “Now then!”
Mary Elizabeth turned in the utmost eagerness and contrition.
“Oh,” she said, “I come to see about the work.”
The New Family Woman towered at us from the top of the three steps.
“How much work,” she inquired with majesty, “do you think I’d get out of you, young miss, at this rate?”
Mary Elizabeth drew nearer to her and stood before her, down in the chips, in the absurd shawl.
“If you’ll leave me come,” she said earnestly, “I’ll promise not to see pictures. Well,” she added conscientiously, “I’ll promise not to stop to look at ’em.”
How much weight this would have carried, I do not know; but at that moment the woman chanced to touch with her foot a mouse-trap that stood on the top step, and it “sprung” and shed its cheese. In an instant Mary Elizabeth had deftly reset and restored it. This made an impression on the arbiter.
“You’re kind of a handy little thing, I see,” she said. “And of course you’re all lazy, for that matter. And I do need somebody. Well, I’ve got a woman coming for to-day. You can begin in the morning. Dishes, vegetables, and general cleaning, and anything else I think you can do. Board and clothes only, mind you—and them only as long as you suit.”
“Yes’m. No’m. Yes’m.” Mary Elizabeth tried to agree right and left.