I
don't; and while I'm here, there must be no difference made. If we
can work together, we can eat together; and because you have been a
slave is all the more reason I should be good to you now."
If Hepsey had been surprised by the new girl's protest against being
made a boot-jack of, she was still more surprised at this sudden
kindness, for she had set Christie down in her own mind as "one ob
dem toppin' smart ones dat don't stay long nowheres." She changed
her opinion now, and sat watching the girl with a new expression on
her face, as Christie took boot and brush from her, and fell to work
energetically, saying as she scrubbed:
"I'm ashamed of complaining about such a little thing as this, and
don't mean to feel degraded by it, though I should by letting you do
it for me. I never lived out before: that's the reason I made a
fuss. There's a polish, for you, and I'm in a good humor again; so
Mr. Stuart may call for his boots whenever he likes, and we'll go to
dinner like fashionable people, as we are."
There was something so irresistible in the girl's hearty manner,
that Hepsey submitted at once with a visible satisfaction, which
gave a relish to Christie's dinner, though it was eaten at a kitchen
table, with a bare-armed cook sitting opposite, and three rows of
burnished dish-covers reflecting the dreadful spectacle.
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