"And when I've got my room cleaned up," Mrs. Purcell went on with increasing heat, "I aint a goin' to have nobody walkin' in to make a muss again. This room's my place, and Mis' Busby nor nobody else hasn't got no right in it. I aint a goin' to be nobody's servant, neither; and if folks from the City o' Pride comes visitin' we, they's got to do as us does. I never asked 'em, nor Joe neither." "Hush, hush, Prissy!" said her husband soothingly. "I didn't--and you didn't," returned his wife. "But Mis' Busby has the house, and it aint as if it warn't her'n; and the young woman won't make you no trouble she can help." "She won't make me none she _can't_ help," said Mrs. Purcell. "Us has to work, and I mean to work; but us has got work enough to do already, and I aint a goin' to take no more, for Mis' Busby nor nobody. You're just soft, Joe, and you let anybody talk you over. I aint." "You've got a soft side to you, though," responded Joe, with a calm twinkle in his eye. "I'd have a rough time of it, if I hadn't found _that_ out." A laugh answered. The sudden change in the woman's lowering face astonished Rotha. Her brows unknit, the lines of irritation smoothed out, a genial, merry, amused expression went with her laugh over to her husband; and the talk flowed over into easier channels. Mr. Purcell even tried after his manner to be civil to the stranger; but Rotha's supper choked her; and as soon as she could she escaped from the table and the onions and went to her room again.