ss my guess if I have to put up with Nellie long!

"So we was engaged. Not a word about any day's work in the week or when
she has sweeping done (she said she'd do the dusting herself--and she's
_wise_, with Nellie 'round) or when she had bakings or anything; only
that she'd have a laundress come in three days (eight hours a day) and
do all our washing. We got a room apiece, but we haven't got a bathroom
like at Mrs. Caines', so she told us we could have the guest bathroom.
My! but I wish you'd heard her; and she's just the prettiest thing in
the world and wears the prettiest clothes. Her clothes is all that gives
me hope of her! She said she embroidered her shirt-waist herself; and I
guess if she can sit up and take that amount of notice, she's got the
makings of sense in her!

"She said could I come that day. I said, 'Yes, ma'am.'

"'You needn't call me that,' says she; 'I don't care for those little
distinctions.'

"'If you please, ma'am,' I says, kind but firm, 'they're fitting and
proper and I prefer it, ma'am.'

"Well, Miss Patsy, I got my first dinner yesterday. I even made the
salad, which belongs to the waitress, but I couldn't risk Nellie Small's
ideas of French dressing _yet_! Miss Patsy, she set her own plate at
table.

"'Now,' says I, 'let's talk plain United States a minute. Whether that
poor, innercent, looney lady craves our company or not, she ain't going
to git it. When I'm cooking a dinner I ain't dressed up for company. I
want _my_ meals in peace, and you ought to want _yours_; they got their
own gossip, same's us; and whatever Miss Van Arden might be willing to
do, the doctor'll want to have her sister and her friends to herself
without you and me butting in; just as I want my meals to myself without
_them_!'

"Nellie told me she was just as good as them; and I said I wasn't the
one that had to decide that; goodness was something only the Lord
Almighty got the scales for weighing exact, but I'd bet money, if it
came to sheer, imbecile cleanness of heart and willingness to sacrifice
herself for any old thing, that Miss Van Arden could give us both a long
start and then beat us! But I guessed we'd leave that part out. Sich
things was just business. We got to take the world's we found it. So she
said _she_ wouldn't take the plate off. I said I wasn't proud; wherefore
I took it off myself, and she didn't put no more on, and the sisters had
their meal in peace. She come when the buzzer called her