M'Crawney exclaimed with pious fervour, as she
emerged from her bedroom and seated herself in all her squalid
untidiness on the nearest chair.

"If it is not your body, what is it, then? Do you think you are
going out of your mind?" demanded Katherine sharply; and turning
from her dish-washing, she treated the woman to a calm appraising
stare, which took in every detail, from the unbrushed hair
straggling over the ragged nightdress to the unwashed, naked feet.

"Going out of my mind?" screamed Mrs. M'Crawney in furious
indignation. "Indeed no! I've got my wits as well as you've got
your own, Miss Katherine Radford; more so, I should say, for I have
a deal too much sense to go slaving myself to death doing work that
no one is likely to say 'thank you' for."

Katherine laughed merrily: "Don't be too sure of that. I expect
that you will be saying 'thank you' presently, when you are washed
and dressed; it makes such a difference when one's hair is tidy!
If you will go into your room again I will bring you some hot water
in a minute. But I can hear my brother Phil coming, and he is such
a dreadful mimic that he will be taking you off for the benefit of
Seal Cove to-morrow, in spite of all that I can do to stop him."

Mrs. M'Crawney vanished with all speed, the hint about being made
fun of being more powerful to move her than anything else would
have been.

Katherine carried in the hot water and tried not to see how badly
the bedroom needed sweeping also. She had no more time for heavy
housework that day, nor did she deem it a duty to waste her
strength on labour which the Irishwoman was equally well able to
perform. Peter had come in when she returned to the outer room,
and was looking about him as if scarcely able to believe the
evidence of his own eyes.

"Well, if it don't beat everything!" he exclaimed, then strode over
to the shelf and examined the books, which Katherine had been
careful to dust. "You've taken the dust off the books too! I
expect you found it rather thick on 'em, didn't you? I don't think
it has been rubbed off 'em these six months past."

"Just what I thought!" she retorted, scrubbing the table with great
energy. "But I hope you don't expect me to pity you for that. A
man who can read books ought to know how to dust them."

"I hadn't thought of doing it myself, that's a fact; but they look
real nice now," he said admiringly. And he was wheeling round to
pay Katherine a complimen