"There's no 'say' about it!" responded the determined voice: "I've
heard about you and your ways around this house, and I'm not going to
put up with it! You'll not lie in bed till high noon when I've got to
keep your room in proper order!"

"Oh ho!" bawled John, intelligently: "reckon you're the new invasion
here? Doubtless you're the girl that's been hanging up the new
window-blinds that won't roll, and disguising the pillows with clean
slips, and 'hennin' round among my books and papers on the table here,
and ageing me generally till I don't know my own handwriting by the
time I find it! Oh, yes! you're going to revolutionize things here;
you're going to introduce promptness, and system, and order. See
you've even filled the wash-pitcher and tucked two starched towels
through the handle. Haven't got any tin towels, have you? I rather
like this new soap, too! So solid and durable, you know; warranted not
to raise a lather. Might as well wash one's hands with a door-knob!"
And as John's voice grumbled away into the sullen silence again, the
determined voice without responded: "Oh, you can growl away to your
heart's content, Mr. McKinney, but I want you to distinctly understand
that I'm not going to humor you in any of your old bachelor,
sluggardly, slovenly ways, and whims and notions. And I want you to
understand, too, that I'm not hired help in this house, nor a
chambermaid, nor anything of the kind. I'm the landlady here; and I'll
give you just ten minutes more to get down to your breakfast, or
you'll not get any--that's all!" And as the reversed cuff John was in
the act of buttoning slid from his wrist and rolled under the dresser,
he heard a stiff rustling of starched muslin flouncing past the door,
and the quick italicized patter of determined gaiters down the hall.