t from another direction, when the bedroom
door opened again, and a surprised: "Hullo! what's up?" burst from
him.

Even Katherine looked amazed, the transformation had been so rapid.
Ten minutes ago a tousled, unclean creature, in a ragged night
garment had disappeared, and now a clean-faced woman in a tidy
frock, and with tidy hair, came from the inner room.

"It is like your impudence to be asking such personal questions as
that," Mrs. M'Crawney retorted lightly, with a smile which showed
her good-looking when she was not peevish. "But it is better I'm
feeling in myself, which is sure to come to the outside sooner or
later. Now, Miss Radford, dear, there's no call for you to go
blacking that stove; I'll do it myself after you are gone. I'm
just dreadful obliged to you for what you've done, especially for
sweeping the floor. I've a soul above sweeping, I have, and I
can't be always lowering myself to dirty work of that sort; it is
damaging to the morals, I find."

Katherine laughed until the tears came into her eyes, then gasped
out in jerky tones: "It would be very bad for my morals to live
with floors unswept, and I think that is how most people feel."

"Perhaps they do, but I was never the ordinary kind of woman; my
mother always said I was sort of one by meself, and she was right.
When Mrs. Burton was staying here, with them two blessed babies, I
used to marvel how she could laugh and carry on as she did, while
the hungry sea as drowned her husband rocked at the very door of
the house. Now, if it had been me, and my husband lay somewhere
out there under the grey, heaving water, I could not have sung and
danced and played hop-scotch, blindman's buff, and things of that
sort, the same as she did."

Katherine's lips took on a scornful curl, and there was an
indignant light in her eyes as she retorted: "No, I expect if Mr.
M'Crawney died you would wear crape a yard deep all round your
frocks, and talk morning, noon, and night of how much you loved
him. But I am quite sure that he would love you a great deal more
if you took the trouble to give him tidy rooms and well-cooked
meals. If I were a man I should just hate a woman who treated me
as badly as you treat Mr. M'Crawney."

"Hooray, you've got it now, and no mistake, old woman!" interjected
Peter, rubbing his hands in huge enjoyment of the scene. Katherine
had forgotten all about him, or it is possible she would not have
spoken so plainly; as it was