Cynthia nodded grimly, turning her squinting gaze upon her. "Do you think I'd let him see me hanging out the clothes?" she snapped. Supreme as her unselfishness was, there were times when she appeared to begrudge the least of her services; and after the manner of all affection that comes as a bounty, the unwilling spirit was more impressive than the ready hand. "I do wish you would make Docia help you," said Lila, in a voice that sounded as if she were speaking in her own defense. Cynthia wrung out a blue jean shirt of Christopher's, spread it on an old lilac-bush, and pushed a stray lock of hair back with her wrist. "There's no use talking like that when you know Docia has heart disease and can't scrub the clothes clean," she responded. "If she'd drop down dead I'd like to know what we'd do with mother." "Well, I'd help you if you'd only let me," protested Lila, on the point of tears. "I've darned your lavender silk the best I could, and I'd just as soon iron as not." "And get your hands like mine in a week. No, I reckon it's as well for one of us to keep decent. My hands are so knotted I had to tell mother it was gout in the joints, and she said I must have been drinking too much port." She laughed, but her eyes filled with tears, and she wiped them with hard rubs on a twisted garment, which she afterward shook in the air to dry. "Well, you're a saint, Cynthia, and I wish you weren't," declared Lila almost impatiently. "It makes me feel uncomfortable, as if it were somehow my fault that you had to be so good." "Being a saint is a good deal like being a woman, I reckon," returned Cynthia dryly. "There's a heap in having been born to it. Aunt Polly, have you put the irons on the fire? The first batch of clothes is almost dry." Aunt Polly, an aged crone, already stumbling into her dotage, hobbled from the kitchen and gathered up an armful of resinous pine from a pile beside the steps. "Dey's 'mos' es hot es de debbil's wood en iron shovel," she replied, with one foot on the step; adding in a piercing whisper: "I know dat ar shovel, honey, 'caze de debbil he done come fur me in de daid er de night, lookin' moughty peart, too; but I tole 'im he des better bide aw'ile 'caze I 'uz leanin' sorter favo'bly to'ad de Lawd." "Aunt Polly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Take those irons off and let them cool." "Dat's so, Miss Cynthy, en I'se right down 'shamed er myse'f, sho' 'nough, but de shame er hit cyarn tu'n de heart er 'ooman.