“Mercy!” she exclaimed. “Is that all the cake you’ve made? And look at the time. You’ll have to frost that, of course. It’s too plain that way. Have you fixed the salad? And, oh, I forgot to say--There’ll have to be hot biscuits. I hope you can make good ones. Mr. Powers is very particular about his biscuits. He likes them light. I must say you might have scrubbed this floor a little bit, and by the way, I wish you’d run up by and by while your vegetables are cooking and wipe up the bath room tiles. My son took a bath this morning just before he went off on a trip and he left water all over the floor.” Joyce turned suddenly from setting the hot cake carefully on a cake-cooler and faced the lady. Her cheeks were two pink flames and her eyes were bits of blue ice. For just one second words trembled on her lips, words that were not humble nor gentle. Here was a woman much like Nannette, who appeared, to think the world was made all for herself. Joyce longed to lay down the knife with which she had loosened the cake from its pan and walk out of the kitchen as she had walked out of her cousin’s kitchen a few days before, never to return, but she reflected that she could not go on walking out of situations all her life that she did not like, and moreover it would be a mean thing to leave the lady with her dinner only half got and company coming. It was obvious the lady was unfitted to get it. And then, she had promised to do it. The lady had depended upon her and she must stick. Why not make a game of it, something that had to be overcome and won? So she let her lips soften into a smile and answered with a twinkle of amusement: “Why, I’m not sure I’ll have time, Mrs. Powers, but I’ll do my best. Things were pretty badly messed up here, you know, and it all took time. By the way, Mrs. Powers, Mrs. Bryant told me that your husband was on the School Board. I wonder if you could tell me whether there is likely to be any opening for a teacher next fall? You know I am a teacher. That is, that’s what I’ve been getting ready to be.” There was something, just a shade of fineness perhaps, in the way Joyce spoke, a kind of sense of being above littleness and an air of being there to help her purely as a favor, that made the lady the least bit ashamed of having asked her to wipe up the bath room floor. She stared at Joyce a minute in that superior sort of surprised way, as if suddenly some ribbon or powder puff or bit of lace she had been using had risen up and claimed a personality, and then she answered in a cold little tone: