"Well," said Mrs. Harding, "it would please me to keep this house quiet, and let that child sleep till the demands of her satisfied body wake her up. Then I'd love to bathe her as a woman would her own, in like case; and cook her such dainties as she should have: things with lots of lime in them. I think her bones haven't been built right; I believe I could make her fifty per cent better in three months myself; and as far as taking her away when this week is up, you might as well begin to make different plans right now. If she does well here, and likes it, she can't be taken back where I found her, till cool weather, if I can get the consent of my mind to let her go then. Of course I know she's yours, so things will be as you say, but think a while before you go against me. If I do all I can for her I ought to earn the privilege of having my finger in the pie a little bit." "So far as Lily goes," said Mickey, "I'd be tickled 'most to death. I ain't anxious to pull and haul, and wake up the poor, little sleepy thing. Every morning it 'most makes me sick. I'd a lot rather let her sleep it out as you say, but while Lily is mine, and I've got to do the best by her I can, you are Peter's so he must do the best by you he can; and did you notice how he jumped on that washing business yesterday? How we going to square up with Peter?" "I'm perfectly willing to do what I said for the sake of that child. I've come to be mighty fond of you Mickey, in the little time I've known you; if I didn't like and want to help Peaches I'd do a lot for her, just to please you----" "Gee, you're something grand!" cried Mickey. "Just common clay, commonest kind of clay Mickey," said Mrs. Harding. "But if you want to know how you could 'square' it with me, which will 'square' it with Peter--I'll tell you. You may think I'm silly; but as we're made, we're made, and this is how it is with me: of course I love Peter, my children, my home, and I love my work; but I've had this job without 'jot or tittle' of change for fifteen years, and I'm about stalled with the sameness of it. I know you'll think I'm crazy----" "I won't!" interrupted Mickey. "You go on and tell me! The sameness of it is getting you and----" "Just the way you flew around and did things last night perfectly amazed me. I never saw a boy like you before; you helped me better and with more sense than any woman I ever hired, and thinking it over last night, I said to myself, 'Now if Mickey would be willing to trade jobs with me, it would give me a change, and it wouldn't be any more woman's work for him than what he _is_ doing----"