"'I _am_,' says Nellie, tossing her head.
"So then she begins; and from that beginning, and calling us in that way, you can imagine how she went on. She explained that while she was a poor girl at her aunty's she read a lovely book about an imaginary country called Altruria; and that the gentleman who wrote it didn't think we _could_ do that way in this country; she supposed we couldn't, but she was going to try, and she hoped we would like her and help her. She didn't know much about housekeeping; she had helped her aunty, but it was writing letters and doing errands and dusting brac-a-brac (and she laughed); the only things she knew how to do right well was to dust and to polish jewelry and make tea. But she hoped to learn; and she had got all the machinery she could think of; there was an electric washer and an ironing machine, and a dishwashing machine, and bread and cake machines, and we ought not to need to work more than eight hours a day. She didn't believe really in more than six hours a day, but at first maybe we wouldn't mind eight.
"I could see that Nellie drinking it all in, getting more topping every minute.
"'Miss Van Arden,' says she, 'how about evenings? I'm used to having _all_ my evenings.'
"'I ain't, madam,' says I, 'not if there's dinner company. And I know well enough Nellie ain't, neither.'
"'I--I could have dinner in the middle of the day,' says Miss Van Arden real pitiful, 'if it weren't that my sister comes in tired at night and likes a hot meal; but I've got a fireless stove, and it _might_ be cooked and left in the fireless stove and we could wait on ourselves.'
"'I guess that'll be satisfactory,' says Nellie, dipping her head and smiling a haughty smile, while I was quivering to git a word in Miss Van Arden's ear. But, of course, there was no chance. And Miss Van Arden, she went on to say that she didn't eat meat herself, but her sister liked to have it, so--'
"'I have to have meat myself,' hops in that Nellie.
"'Oh, of course,' Miss Van Arden said; she didn't dictate to others, but personally she didn't eat meat; but she didn't need any special vegetable dishes made for her.
"'You shall have 'em if you want 'em, ma'am,' says I; then, 'and I guess the cook will have something to say about the kitchen table; I ain't never much on meat myself.' I guess that was one for miss!