be majestic. She was stupid, awkward and slovenly about her work, and
altogether so "impossible" that I disliked to send her adrift upon the
world, and was still more averse to imposing her upon another
household. In a weak moment I essayed to reason her out of her fatuous
vanity, and stimulate in her a desire to make something better of
herself. She seemed to hearken while I represented mildly the
expediency of learning to do her part in life well and creditably; how
conscience entered into the performance of duties some people
considered mean; how, in this country, a washerwoman is as worthy as
the President's wife, so long as she respects herself.

Norah's impassive face had not changed, but she interposed here:

"Beg pardon, ma'am! I've no thought of taking a hand with the
washing."

I was silly enough to go on with what I had tried to make so plain
that the wayfaring "living-out girl" could not err in taking it in. I
was willing to train her in the duties of her station. I set forth,
and would have specified what these were, but for a second
interruption that was evidently not intentionally disrespectful, and
was uttered with the bovine stolidity that never forsook her.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but I've always understood that all that made a
lady in Ameriky was eddercation, an' shure I have that 's well 's
you!"

She could read, or so I suppose, although I never saw a book in her
hand, and could probably write, after the fashion of her class.