ok naps in the morning?
And then the blessed memory that there was no reason why she shouldn't
do exactly as she pleased with her time, so long as the dishes were
done after awhile, came to her.
"There's no clock in the forest," she thought, smiling drowsily; and
lay serenely on the pine-needles for another half hour.
When she did go in, the quantity of dishes wasn't so terrific. There
had been no courses. Each man had left behind him an entirely empty
plate and mug and knife and fork; that was all. And Marjorie seemed to
have more energy and delight in running about and doing things than she
had ever known she possessed, in the heavy New York air. She washed
the dishes and swept out the cabin with a gay good will that surprised
herself. She tried to feel like Cinderella or Bluebeard's wife or some
of the oppressed heroines who had loomed large in her past, but it
wasn't to be done. After that she was so hungry--her own breakfast had
been taken in bites, on the run--that she ate up all the remaining
biscuits, after toasting them and making herself bacon sandwiches as
she had for the men; quite forgetting that her own abode lay near,
filled to repletion with stores of a quite superior kind. The bacon
sandwiches and warmed-over coffee tasted better than anything she had
ever eaten in her life.
And then there was a whole long afternoon ahead of her, before she had
to do a solitary thing for the men's supper!
"I must have 'faculty'!" said Marjorie to herself proudly, thinking
more highly of her own talents than she ever had before. The fact that
as a filing-clerk she had not shone had made her rather meek about her
own capacities. She had always taken it impudently for granted that
she was attractive, because the fact had been, so to speak, forced on
her. But there had been a very humble-minded feeling about her
incapacity for a business life. Miss Kaplan, for instance, she of the
exuberant emotions and shaky English, had a record for accuracy and
speed in her particular line which was unsullied by a single lapse.
And Lucille, lazy, luxury-loving Lucille, concealed behind her
fluffinesses an undoubted and remorseless executive ability. Compared
to them Marjorie had always felt herself a most useless person. That
was why she always was meeker in office hours than out of them. And to
find herself swinging this work, even for one meal, without a feeling
of incapacity and unworthiness, made her very chee
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