Esther did not answer.

"Now, isn't it a grubby little room to put two girls to sleep in? What was
your last place like?"

Esther answered that she had hardly been in service before. Margaret was
too much engrossed in her own thoughts to notice the curtness of the
answer.

"There's only one thing to be said for Woodview, and that is the eating;
we have anything we want, and we'd have more than we want if it weren't
for the old cook: she must have her little bit out of everything and she
cuts us short in our bacon in the morning. But that reminds me! You have
set the cook against you; you'll have to bring her over to your side if
you want to remain here."

"Why should I be asked to wash up the moment I came in the house, before
even I had time to change my dress."

"It was hard on you. She always gets as much as she can out of her
kitchen-maid. But last night she was pressed, there was company to dinner.
I'd have lent you an apron, and the dress you had on wasn't of much
account."

"It isn't because a girl is poor----"

"Oh, I didn't mean that; I know well enough what it is to be hard up."
Margaret clasped her stays across her plump figure and walked to the door
for her dress. She was a pretty girl, with a snub nose and large, clear
eyes. Her hair was lighter in tone than Esther's, and she had brushed it